
- In the past 60 years, vaccines helped eradicate one disease (Smallpox) and are close to eradicating another (Polio).
- Vaccines prevent more than 2.5 million deaths each year.
- The impact of child vaccines is magnified when used in conjunction with other health efforts like antibiotics, oral rehydration salts, bednets, and vitamins.
- New and underutilized vaccines could avert nearly 4 million deaths of children under the age 5 by 2015.
- Vaccines cause “herd immunity”, which means if the majority of people in a community have been vaccinated against a disease, an unvaccinated person is less likely to get sick because others are less likely to get sick and spread the disease.
- Vaccines helped reduce measles deaths globally by 78 percent between 2000 and 2008. In sub-Saharan Africa, deaths dropped by 92 percent in the same period.
- There are existing vaccines that could stop rotavirus and pneumonia—two conditions that kill nearly 3 million children under the age of 5 every year.
- New or improved vaccines are currently being developed for HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases. Researchers estimate that a viable malaria vaccine could be ready for children in the developing world as early as 2015.
- Not all vaccines are given as shots. Vaccines for rotavirus and polio, for instance, are distributed orally.
- The GAVI Alliance has supported the immunization of more than 288 million children and as a result averted more than 5 million child deaths since 2000.
- Most diseases prevented by vaccines are no longer common in the United States. If vaccines weren’t used, just a few cases could quickly turn into tens or hundreds of thousands.
Organize an awareness campaign about the importance of vaccines. GO [1]
Sources: ONE Campaign [2]