flu vaccination

Immunizations, also known as vaccines, can protect individuals from getting potentially life-threatening diseases. Vaccines will prevent you from getting a disease and also reduce its severity.

Why Should Someone Get Immunized?

The goal of public health organizations is to prevent mass disease. It's much more cost-effective and easier to prevent a disease than it is to treat someone with a disease. That's precisely what vaccines and immunizations aim to do.

Not only do vaccines protect us from serious diseases, but they also prevent the spread of those diseases to others. Through the years vaccines have prevented epidemics of once common infectious diseases such as mumps, measles, and whooping cough. And because of immunizations, we've seen the near disappearance of others, such as polio and smallpox.

Some vaccines are just given one time while others require “boosters” to provide continued protection.

How Do Immunizations Work?

When you get an immunization or vaccine, you are being injected with a weakened form of (or a fragment of) that specific disease. This triggers your body's immune reaction, causing it to prompt other processes that improve immunity or produce antibodies to that particular disease.

Common Immunizations

In the past, each of the diseases addressed by these vaccines posed a serious health threat to adults and children, taking lives by the thousands and, sometimes, even more. Thanks to vaccines, today most of these diseases are at their lowest levels in decades.

Pearl Chemist Group offers a full range of vaccinations, including the Covid-19, Hepatitis, and flu vaccination in London at any of our branch locations.

Here are some of the vaccines we offer:

  • Hepatitis B
  • Rotavirus
  • Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis 
  • Haemophilus influenzae type B
  • Flu
  • Covid-19
  • Polio
  • Influenza
  • Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR)
  • Varicella (chickenpox)
  • Hepatitis A
  • Meningococcal (for certain high-risk groups)
  • HPV

What About Immunization Side Effects?

Vaccines are a safe and effective way to prevent disease. As with any medication, there is a small risk of side effects. In most cases, these are side effects from vaccines are usually mild. The most common side effects to immunization include:

  • Redness or soreness or redness at the injection site
  • Low-grade fever

The benefits of getting vaccinated far outweigh the risks.

How Effective Are Immunizations?

Vaccines are typically 90%-100% effective at preventing disease. Since they are not 100% effective in all people, it’s all the more reason for everyone to get vaccinated. The people who are 100% vaccinated protect those who have not been totally immunized. This lessens everyone’s risk of exposure to disease. This is one of the most important benefits of being vaccinated.

Even in the situation where a vaccine has not provided 100% immunity, the symptoms -- if you get an infectious disease -- will still usually be milder than if you had not been immunized at all.

If you’re wondering where to get your flu vaccination in the UK, or any other vaccination, visit any of our Pearl Chemist locations. Make an appointment online or walk-in to any of South London locations to get your vaccination. Clinicians are always on hand to answer any questions you may have about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines for yourself or your child.