The success stories associated with childhood immunization are well known: polio, a highly contagious disease that crippled thousands of Americans in the early 1950s, has been eliminated in North America. The last case of smallpox was reported in 1977.
These advances are so well known that many mistakenly believe that the battle against infectious diseases has been won.
As recently as 20 years ago, haemophilis influenzae type b disease, better known as Hib, was the major cause of bacterial meningitis among American children. Hib is a bacterial illness that is easily spread from person to person, much as the common cold, and may linger in the nose and throat causing few if any symptoms. Once the germs spread into the lungs or blood stream, Hib can cause a number of very serious illnesses, including meningitis, an often fatal infection of the brain and central nervous system.
Before Hib conjugate vaccines became widely available in the United States in 1988, Hib disease infected about 20,000 children under age five each year. Of these, about three to six percent died and as many as 20 percent were left with lasting effects such as permanent hearing loss or blindness. Thanks to widespread use of the vaccine, Hib cases in the United States have declined by 95 percent.
Each year, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) draws up a recommended immunization schedule. While these schedules can seem complicated, parents who make use of regular well baby visits should get the reminders they need from their pediatricians.
Adolescents are another matter since they are likely to see a doctor only when they are injured, ill or need a physical for a school or camp activity. So it’s important to stay up-to-date and keep your own immunization records.
The most up to date immunization recommendations for all vaccines can be found on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website at: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/
One person’s chance of contracting any of these diseases is low...but only if everyone else is immunized.
Tana N Kaefer, Pharm
