 At Audiology Associates of Prestonsburg, you can live your life the way you want and find the freedom of better hearing. With 40 years of being in the hearing care industry, you'll experience patient care that is specific to you with exceptional follow-up care that ensures your hearing and balance needs are being met. Audiology Associates at 1428 Northlake Drive in Prestonsburg. World Immunization Week celebrated the last week of April, works to highlight the importance of vaccination to prevent deadly diseases. Millions of children missed out on vaccines during the pandemic, leading to an outbreak of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases. We spoke to Public Health Director Tammy Riley on the importance of vaccination and vaccine safety. Many probably are aware that Kentucky's recently had three documented cases of measles, for example, and that's something that we've normally not seen in recent years. So herd immunity for most diseases varies depending on the disease, but for most it would be around 95 to 96 percent participation in vaccines to achieve herd immunity. So when that occurs, then the whole population is safe. And that's how we eliminate diseases, such as polio. The World Health Organization estimates that childhood vaccines alone save over four million lives every year. Well, vaccines are available for a wide variety of serious diseases. And over the years, vaccines have prevented serious, deadly diseases and saved millions of lives. But the fact of the matter is, vaccines, the recommendations vary widely depending on an individual's age, their health, where they live, their travel habits, their occupation. So there's a wide variety of factors that influence vaccine recommendations. But the fact remains that vaccines are widely available, that they prevent serious and deadly disease, and that it's documented. But that we are seeing in recent years an emerging, a reemerging situation of diseases that we normally haven't seen in years, like the measles situation recently in Kentucky and across the nation. For more information on vaccine safety, immunization schedules and more, go to PikeCountyHealth.com. Reporting for Mountaintop News, I'm Brianna Robinson.