The more you understand about primary immunodeficiency (PI), the better you can live with the disease or support others in your life with PI. Learn more about PI, including the various diagnoses and treatment options.
Living with primary immunodeficiency (PI) can be challenging, but you’re not alone—many people with PI lead full and active lives. With the right support and resources, you can, too.
Be a hero for those with PI. Change lives by promoting primary immunodeficiency (PI) awareness and taking action in your community through advocacy, donating, volunteering, or fundraising.
Whether you’re a clinician, researcher, or an individual with primary immunodeficiency (PI), IDF has resources to help you advance the field. Get details on surveys, grants, and clinical trials.
Vigilance is routine for parents of children with primary immunodeficiency as school begins. Parents meet with educators to explain PI. They ensure a specialized plan is in place to help with their child’s learning. They request teachers tell them about illnesses in the classroom. Parents take all of these steps – and more – to create the safest environment possible for their kids.
But this school year – faced with a pandemic that shows no signs of slowing – parents must plan more carefully than they ever have before. Mask mandates in schools vary from state to state, children under 12 still don’t have access to an approved COVID-19 vaccine, and the delta variant is gaining strength. As school systems phase out online learning and move to in-person classes, parents feel tremendous stress.
Although the IDF can’t provide education advice for individual families, we can make some general recommendations to navigate back-to-school issues during the pandemic.
First, parents should meet with their healthcare provider to discuss the level of risk to their child in returning to school. Age, health, COVID-19 vaccination status, and PI type are all factors to consider.
Second, parents should familiarize themselves with both the COVID-19 infection rate and the vaccination rate in their state. In addition, parents should know what precautions, such as masks, educators are taking to mitigate COVID-19 infection in schools.
Meanwhile, parents can also continue to advocate for their children by spreading awareness of PI in their schools. IDF has a host of free resources that can be mailed to parents or downloaded from the IDF website, all of which can be shared with educators. A few of them are listed below:
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The Immune Deficiency Foundation improves the diagnosis, treatment, and quality of life for every person affected by primary immunodeficiency.
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