Vaccination especially important for malnourished kids

Updated 3 years ago · Published on 28 Apr 2020 3:58PM · 14 Comments

IMAGINE how health would be affected by economic devastation in a world already reeling from a pandemic.

Tumbling purchasing power would leave many families and nations hungry. Inadequate or improper diets would push many more to the brink of malnutrition, which is an urgent global problem.  

For a child, the precious first 1,000 days is crucial for lifelong health, and should be capitalised on to ensure good growth. Scarce nutrition at this time may set the stage for long-term diseases. For a pregnant woman, malnutrition can affect her unborn child, and even impact generations to come.

What exactly is malnutrition?

Do we realise that malnutrition includes not only a state of deficiency, but also a state of excess or imbalance?

Being underweight (wasted, stunted, or both); being overweight or obese; and, having an excess or deficiency of vitamins and minerals are all types of malnutrition.

Nutrition and immunity

 The importance of nutrition is such that it influences a network linking our immunity, metabolism and hormones.

A malnourished child has to cope with an initially increased metabolism. So, the focus of food energy is to survive. There is very little extra energy to fight infections. Immune-system cells are, after all, just like any other cells in the body, and need energy to function.

When a malnourished person has to fight off an infection, the body doesn’t do it right because there are a lot of unnecessary inflammatory processes. So, the person is really in a state of immune deficiency, and this is only the tip of the iceberg because nutrition functions in so many ways.

When protein, an extremely important nutrient in diet, is reduced, infections occur frequently because immune cells contain proteins. Malnourished individuals also suffer because their intestinal barriers, which keep infections within the gut, don’t function properly. There is not only the risk of frequent infections, but also the risk of a dangerous spread of infections.

It’s important to get micronutrients in a balanced diet. An iron deficiency increases the risk of infections, but too much of it can predispose one to infections. Therefore, popping iron tablets without getting medical advice is dangerous.

Vitamin A and iodine deficiencies may be more subtle in the early stages, but can also increase infection risks.

Obesity, at the other end of the malnutrition spectrum, is a risk factor in H1N1 and Covid-19 cases.

Not always aware

The face of malnutrition is so varied today that many people are actually suffering from one deficiency or another without knowing it. 

Since nutrition is so important to fight infections, how we respond to infections really depends on our holistic nutrition. For example, although we know some of the underlying health issues that put a Covid-19 patient’s life at bigger risk, there are still victims without such issues who have succumbed to the disease.

Hence, having a balanced diet, immunising against diseases with vaccines, and being up to date on new, approved vaccines are necessary.

Vaccination and malnutrition

Since malnutrition causes so many problems, one may wonder if undernourished children can respond well to vaccines.

The best strategy is to do both – improve their nutrition and vaccinate them.

Fortunately, even malnourished children can respond well to vaccination, although how severely malnourished they are may result in some differences in their response.

These children are important target groups for vaccination because of their risk of severe infections. Infections can tip the balance of nutrition in any child, but vaccinations work by protecting them. Studies have indicated that even when children suffer stunting and wasting, vaccines can normalise growth in a number of them. 

Vaccinations allow an undernourished child to use their precious calories for growth and development of the body and brain, instead of simply fighting infections. Also, let’s not overlook the fact that by vaccinating children, the number of vaccinated individuals in a population increases, and that’s important for herd immunity. – April 28, 2020.

* Dr Prameela Kannan Kutty is professor of paediatrics at Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.

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Comments

  • It was a very thoughtful topic on how vaccine actually can play an important role in not only in triggering body immunity but also in countries where malnourishment is an big issue involving impairment in growth and their development where it offloads the unnecessary energy expenditure due to the ongoing inflammatory processes and focusing usage of the calories for their growth. Since the obesity rate in Malaysia is quite high, we can say that a big number of malaysians too have issues with malnourishment( excess in nutrition) and these vaccination benefits helps our population too. Sad part is that there are a group of Malaysian who are against these vaccination protocols for some reasons that might be a problem later on

    Posted 3 years ago by Harin Rajindran · Reply

  • Well written article in simple language with comprehensive content. In this difficult time where many are facing difficulty making end meets, we are indirectly exposing our precious children to the invisible enemy- infection. And the answer to some of these infections are VACCINES . Never overlook the simple jabs that are given as the effect of herd immunity is what we are trying to achieve. A great example of this effect is small pox which was completely eradicated by vaccination. Greater news for all Malaysians is that mandatory vaccines are fully sponsored by the Malaysian government. Therefore, lets us play our role in the community by taking up these vaccines and together we minimise the detrimental effect of the invisible enemy.

    Posted 3 years ago by Eugene Hew · Reply

  • Totally agree. A good and balanced diet plus vaccination protect our kids better. This is really important as our country is a developing country. Hence, malnutrition is still our concern, especially indigenous people. However, many people are unaware of the vaccination and even some of them are against this vaccination. We should have a foresight that with vaccination, our kids can prevent and fight infections by having immunity. We should take good care of our kids as they are our future leader.

    Posted 3 years ago by Samuel Ting · Reply

  • Very interesting topic about malnourished and vaccination. How this two big issue linked together make sense and proven. By reading this, make us realised how important vaccine to human being. Herd immunity give as the proof. Waiting for many more research to open the publics eyes about how important vaccination and also never ending issue of malnutrition. Knowledgeable and thoughtful article. Thanks

    Posted 3 years ago by Siti Hajar · Reply

  • Its a well written article regarding vaccination, nutrition and its relation with malnutrition. This should be addressed in our developing country, Malaysia because there are a group of parenfs who are Anti-vaccine and they do not fully understand the benefits of vaccination and the deadly effects of not vaccinating their child. Eventhough ours is a developing country, however there are citizens who are living below the poverty line. These children are more prone to become malnourished and hence not vaccinaging them wud lead to dangerous consequences.

    Posted 3 years ago by Lavanya Sivaji · Reply

  • One of the few articles that addresses the importance of Vaccination in an undernourished child. Concise and very informative. By all accounts, this is truly an eye-opening write up on how important a simple vaccination can be. Immunisation saves lives. Thank you for this great article !

    Posted 3 years ago by Aswinkumar Gunasekaran · Reply

  • This is an article that gives people awareness about the importance of vaccination especially those who are malnourished. People nowadays are having wrong impression towards vaccination and some of them even try to be #antivaccine group. I think this is a serious issue if there are more and more people who agree with the #antivaccine concept. Therefore, we should be mindful and aware of things that is true and good for us.

    Posted 3 years ago by Teo Meisy · Reply

  • Well written article, Prof. Definitely this article will change people mentality toward positivity and aware about the importance of vaccination.

    Posted 3 years ago by Nur Azimah · Reply

  • Not all Superheroes wear Cape, some they use PEN. Thank you for this wonderful and well written article on the Importance of Vaccination. By just reading this it is not enough, we should not let it just stop here.For a better nation, Lets do our part and share this out to create awareness among our community. Jab your beloved child or let ur beloved child suffer? The choice is yours.

    Posted 3 years ago by Sarveen Vasu · Reply

  • This article is very informative and insightful. Vaccination is important even in a malnourished children. Let us not forget the benefits of vaccination to the children as well as to the community itself. We were all in this pandemic together, having all sorts of difficulties from financials burden, economics downturn. But the most precious gift is a healthy body and a healthy family. Play our part by giving the vaccinations required for our children.

    Posted 3 years ago by Abrar Roslan · Reply

  • Can't link malnutrition and the importance of vaccination more better than this which both have quite numbers of issues to be tackled in current generation. This article will definitely be eye opener to many people in this midst of pandemic as many people started to give more importance to the infectious diseases and their preventions

    Posted 3 years ago by Thecican Mathivanan · Reply

  • Thank you prof for such an essential and invaluable piece of information that I believe most of us, Malaysians are still unaware of it. No doubt that vaccination has never been more imperative for us mere mortal to fight against those fatlal infection, but getting well-nourished is definitely deemed as equally important as

    Posted 3 years ago by Ruth Ting · Reply

    • getting vaccinated. This beautiful concise article has depicted vividly the importance and relationship between the 2 factors, which are often neglected by the parents. Such a clear and simple message yet I believe it has brought so much insight to us all. I think that everyone who has read this article should work hand in hand by continue circulating it among our friends and spread "the truth" to the people in our society so that all nation can benefit from it. Once again, the the younger generation holds the future of our country, thus it is our job to provide them the best that we can!

      Posted 3 years ago by Ruth Ting · Reply

  • This article is so educational yet easily understandable even to non medical people. Really appreciate the effort of Prof. Prameela as the article had came up to spread the message to public because advancement in the field of medicine also happen while sharing the knowledge.

    Posted 3 years ago by Fiona Shau · Reply