{"id":1252,"date":"2015-11-24T09:50:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T09:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2015-11-26T02:21:14","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T02:21:14","slug":"vaccination-still-most-effective-way-to-prevent-pneumonia-say-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/vaccination-still-most-effective-way-to-prevent-pneumonia-say-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaccination still most effective way to prevent pneumonia, say experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Vaccination remains the most effective way of preventing pneumonia, according to Dr. Rontgene Solante, chairman of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Section at the San Lazaro Hospital, as the world marked the World Pneumonia Day 2015.<\/strong> \"WPD2015\"<\/a> An infection caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death in both adults and children worldwide. In the Philippines, pneumonia is the second leading cause of disease and the fourth leading cause of death. Its symptoms include fever, cough, shaking chills, rapid breathing or difficulty in breathing, and chest pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cPneumonia affects everyone across all ages. It is one of diseases that has the highest rate of mortality so I encourage everybody to receive pneumococcal vaccines,\u201d said Solante, reminding everyone that once a person is afflicted with pneumonia, he\/she can still be infected again.<\/p>\n

Everyone is at risk of developing pneumococcal disease (PD) and the chance of acquiring it increases with age. Children and adolescents who are asthmatic and have other high risk medical conditions are at a higher risk in developing PD than those without. Adult patients with lung diseases, cardiovascular and renal diseases, diabetes, having weak or suppressed immune system, being undernourished, and other diseases caused by smoking and those affected by socio-economic and environmental factors face higher likelihood of PD compared with healthy adults.<\/p>\n

Dr. Katrina Florcruz, a Philippine Pediatric Society member and a pediatrician at The Medical City, said that a person afflicted with pneumonia can become vulnerable to various illnesses as it declines the immune system, increasing further the risk of infection. This, together with other factors unknown to patients that can trigger infection, can be fatal and may result in long-term problems.<\/p>\n

In relation to this, Florcruz reminded everyone to administer complete doses of vaccines to keep them and their family safe from pneumonia.<\/p>\n

\u201cVaccine doses must be followed in order for the body to receive the maximum protection,\u201d Florcruz said. Solante claimed they have 14 vaccines that can be recommended for adults to prevent this life-threatening illness.<\/p>\n

Pharmaceutical firm Pfizer is already raising disease awareness on pneumonia and advocating its prevention through vaccination.<\/p>\n

\u201cPneumonia is more than just a cough. If left untreated, it can cause serious illness and even death,\u201d said Dr. Allen Marlon Costales, Pfizer\u2019s vaccines medical manager. \u201cPfizer urges individuals to learn more about pneumonia and pneumonia prevention from their physicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company is also reminding the public that the best way to prevent PD\u00a0is through immunization. Vaccines for PD are effective in preventing severe diseases, hospitalization and even death.<\/p>\n

\"Drs.<\/a>

Drs. Rontgene Solante and Dr. Katrina Florcruz (third and fourth from left), together with Pfizer officers and other guests who attended the World Pneumonia Day event. \u200b<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vaccination remains the most effective way of preventing pneumonia, according to Dr. Rontgene Solante, chairman of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Section at the San Lazaro Hospital, as the world marked the World Pneumonia Day 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,36,3,35],"tags":[744,750,743,753,751,749,748,745,747,752,742,746],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","category-health-wellness-2","category-spotlight","category-wellness-2","tag-adult-infectious-diseases-and-tropical-medicine-section","tag-dr-katrina-florcruz","tag-dr-rontgene-solante","tag-pfizer","tag-philippine-pediatric-society","tag-pneumococcal-disease","tag-pneumonia","tag-san-lazaro-hospital","tag-streptococcus-pneumoniae","tag-the-medical-city","tag-vaccination","tag-world-pneumonia-day-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1258,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions\/1258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}