A frightening reminder of the need for vaccinations

The World Health Organization has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency requiring an all-out effort to combat.

Ebola, which inflicts about half its victims with a bleeding, horrible death, has had about 20 outbreaks in central and eastern Africa since it was first identified 1976, but this is the first one that has affected West Africa, emerging in Guinea in March and spreading to Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The declaration ranks Ebola, which has killed nearly a thousand people so far, with similar WHO emergencies declared for swine flu in 2009 and polio in May.

Two of the hardest-hit countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have brought in troops to enforce quarantines and prevent people from traveling.

Two infected U.S. aid workers were flown, one at a time in specially-equipped jets, to the United States where they were placed in tight isolation and treated with experimental drugs, which seem to be working, so far.

Health officials don't know if the experimental vaccines are safe or effective, and it will be at least a year before any Africans can hope to have the drugs available.

Air travel has shrunk distances to the point that diseases like Ebola don't make themselves known until long after an infected person may have arrived at a destination on the far side of the world.

Ebola is an extreme example, but it shows what can happen when diseases are able to spread, unchecked, through unprotected populations.

That's why it's important we not become complacent when it comes to protecting ourselves and our families from communicable diseases when we can.

Nebraska requires school children to be immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B and varicella (chicken pox).

Schools are required to maintain immunization records on each student enrolled, and parents or guardians must provide an immunization record or a statement signed by a physician that the required immunization would be injurious to the student or members of the household, or an affidavit that the immunization conflicts with the tenets and practices of a recognized religious denomination of which the student is a member.

As summer winds down, now is a good time to check with your healthcare provider to make sure your student's immunizations are up to date.