Childhood Vaccination Research Paper

In 2009 8.1million children under five died worldwide which means that every day more than 22,000 children died and 2/3 of deaths, 5.4million, were due to infectious diseases (UNICEF 2010). Mass vaccination campaigns are accepted as a number one solution to the child mortality from the preventable infectious diseases. Vaccines are one of the greatest public health attainments which from people benefited throughout the last two centuries (Stern, Markel 2005). They are the safe guardians of both children and adults. The main goal of vaccinationsis to stimulate the immune system to some contagion without suffering from natural infection (Payette and Davis 2001).In a period of time before the emergence of preventable therapies, such diseases as
Vaccination is not without risks, since adverse events may be observed after any vaccination. Since 1990, Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the USA received from 12 000 to 14 000 reports of hospitalization, injuries and deaths after immunization. Moreover, only 10 % of doctors make reports to VAERS. That means every year there are more than 1 million people in the U.S. injured by immunization (Murphy 2002). In recent years, a concern regarding both the safety and necessity of certain immunizations has been raised, since the number of new vaccines had risenover the past two decades. This is supported by Murphy (2002) who claims thata child takes 37 doses of eleven different vaccines during his first five years of
Contagious diseases have always shaped human history (Poland and Jacobson 2001). In 1998 transmittable diseases were ranked second after cardiovascular diseases among the reasons of deaths at 13.3 million which is 25% of the total number of deaths worldwide (Dittman 2001).They were the number one killers of both children and adults in developing countries representing 50% of deaths.But the emergence of vaccines changed the situation.Such diseases as diphtheria and Haemophilusinfluenzae type B are almost eradicated, while smallpox has been wiped out. Never before in mankind’s history wasone of the terminal illnesses stamped out. Smallpox cases stopped completely in the US and the UK by 1971. As far as Asia is concerned, it happened by 1975. Therefore, in 1980 World Health Organization (WHO)declared total eradication of smallpox (Payette and Davis 2001). Now it is only an illness of historic interest (Poland and Jacobson 2001). Taking into account such a success with smallpox, the Expanded Program on Immunisation(EPI) was established in 1974, and it became one of the most successful public health policies. During its first twenty years of functioning,the EPI saved about 3-4 million children a year and there were 1 million less mentally handicapped