A New iPhone App Is Helping Parents Protect Their Children From The Recent Whooping Cough Epidemic

Dec. 29, 2012 - PRLog -- Whooping cough is on track to become the most severe preventable epidemic in over a half century. And it could stem from a decline in childhood vaccinations.

A new iPhone app, Vaccination Scheduler, has just launched that is helping address this problem of missed and delayed childhood vaccinations. Vaccination Scheduler sends parents reminders for when their children’s vaccinations are due. By vaccinating according to the recommended schedule, parents greatly reduce the chance of their children getting infected.

Research into the causes of missed vaccination appointments highlighted that 80% of new parents relied heavily on prompting by their friends, mothers groups and their childcare centers to remind them that their child’s vaccination is due. This has a considerable impact on both the child and parents and is easily avoidable, as Jeri Murphy, a mother of 3, experienced.

“Like many working mums my life is busy and remembering my children’s vaccination dates is not always at the top of my mind. What would have been a simple task before created 10 more things I had to do, and in a hurry, in an already busy day.”

“This vaccination app would have saved me all the stress and wasted time of having to implement a catch-up immunisation schedule,” Says Jeri.

Whooping cough is most dangerous for babies and young children and parents have a responsibility to make sure their children are vaccinated and at the right time.

Whooping cough causes severe almost uncontrollable coughing. It usually begins with cold-like symptoms, such as a fever, a runny nose and sneezing, and is accompanied by a mild cough that grows more severe by the first or second week. A high-pitched whoop, giving the illness its name, can follow violent coughing fits.

"An outbreak of a preventable illness reminds us of the importance of immunization, and the danger in neglecting to make good use of the vaccines at our disposal.  Vaccines are among the most important public health advances in history- a fact only overlooked by societies spared the dreadful diseases vaccines help prevent.” said Dr. David L. Katz, Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center.

“We should recognize that when it comes to contagion, not one of us is an island. By immunizing your children you’re not just helping prevent them from contracting whooping cough but also helping prevent the spread of this highly contagious infection.”

The Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children be vaccinated against whooping cough with a series of shots at ages 2, 4, 6 and 15 months and again at 4 years.

Vaccination Scheduler only requires 2 bits of information to be entered. The child’s Date of Birth and their Name. Vaccination Scheduler automatically fills in its calendar of the recommended vaccination dates specifically for your child. And like an alarm clock the app will remind you of every upcoming vaccination appointment you need to make and what it is for. It can manage up to 6 children and also tracks their complete vaccination history.

Vaccination Scheduler works with the latest published information available from the World Health Organisation and CDC and is updated regularly.

Vaccination scheduler is a $0.99 app and is currently available for iPhone.

Here is a link to Vaccination Scheduler: https://itunes.apple.com/app/vaccination-scheduler/id563213898?mt=8.    

For more information please visit our website: www.vaccinationscheduler.com

Photo:
https://www.prlog.org/12050702/1