By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

Getting a child’s immunizations on schedule can be not only healthy for the child, it can be healthy for the family budget as well.

Marion parents Emily Miller and Christopher Wilson won a prize of $200 toward the utility bill of their choice because they got all of Ivan Wilson’s immunizations on schedule. Ivan is 19 months old.

The award is part of the Vaccines for Children program of the state department of health and environment, which tracks immunizations and awards one utility payment prize in each of the state’s 105 counties.

The county health department was recently notified the Wilson family won.

“We are advocates of child immunizations,” county health nurse Diedre Serene said.

Besides vaccinating children against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, and chickenpox, the health department also offers immunizations against pneumonia, meningitis, and human papillomavirus, which can cause genital warts and certain types of cancer.

Serene said the health department encourages caregivers and grandparents of infants to be immunized against whooping cough, also known as pertussis. Pertussis can be fatal to infants.

The state’s Cocoon Project provides free pertussis vaccine for caregivers of infants and the health department charges a small fee for administering the vaccine.

“It’s a really good deal because we give it to them for $20,” Serene said.

The health department has plenty of the vaccine on hand at the moment, Serene said.

“Just call us for an appointment. The program is called ‘Cocoon’ because we want to wrap the protection around the infants because they don’t get the vaccine until 6 months.”