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.
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