Thanks to routine vaccines, individuals can be protected from many preventable diseases52:
Click on the diseases on the right to learn more about that specific disease, how that disease is spread, what the symptoms of that disease are, the severity of the disease, and when the ideal timing is to vaccinate against that disease.
Vaccines are remarkable scientific achievements that have greatly reduced rates of death and disease (mentioned above) around the world. Infection rates for certain serious diseases in the U.S. fell because of wide- spread vaccination programs against diseases such as Polio, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (whooping cough), Measles, Mumps, and Rubella69- but the viruses and bacteria that cause these diseases are still around. Disease rates will remain low only if we maintain high levels of vaccination. It is important to understand, with the current trend of less than optimal vaccination coverage, we are moving in a direction of encountering a vaccine preventable disease outbreak.
