Six Infectious Diseases You Won't Get Thanks to Vaccines

“From the introduction of the smallpox vaccine in the 19th century to the mass availability of flu shots today, vaccines have helped millions of people develop immunity to some of the world’s deadliest illnesses. Thanks to vaccines, many infectious diseases--like smallpox and polio--no longer exist outside of laboratories in the US. Their lasting elimination has spurred researchers to work to develop new types of immunizations that could help people avoid other life-altering diseases. Here are six once-common diseases that you no longer have to worry about thanks to vaccines. SMALLPOX used to wipe out populations by the thousands. The virus attacks the immune system, causing rapid death. When European colonizers brought smallpox to the Americas in the 17th century, it became an epidemic, killing three out of every 10 people who got it. In 1796, physician Edward Jenner discovered that people could become immune to smallpox if they received an injection of a similar, less invasive strain of the virus. Jenner’s experiments led to the development of the the world's first vaccine. Over the next century, vaccinations became a routine practice in developed countries. In 1972, the US declared smallpox eradicated. POLIO is a viral infection that lives inside a person’s throat and intestines. One in four people who catch the disease develop flu-like symptoms that go away, but a smaller percentage suffer severe effects, including paralysis and respiratory failure. Some infected children would spend weeks inside giant machines called iron lungs, since polio made them unable to breathe on their own. According to NPR, 3,000 US children died from polio in the year 1952 alone. Polio deaths were so common, in fact, that companies sold polio insurance to the parents of newborns. But once a vaccine was introduced in 1955, polio rates declined rapidly. In 1979, the disease was considered eliminated from the US. DIPHTHERIA infections affected more than 200,000 people in 1921 and caused approximately 15,520 deaths that year, according to the CDC. The diphtheria vaccine was introduced in the 1920s, so natural outbreaks haven’t been an issue for nearly a century in the US. MUMPS is a respiratory disease caused by the paramyxovirus. Prior to the advent of the mumps vaccine, roughly 186,000 people in the US contracted the virus every year. Mumps cases in the US declined by 99 percent after the introduction of the vaccine in 1967, and there are now only a few hundred cases per year. MEASLES (also known as rubeola) attacks the respiratory system and other organs. If the infection is severe, it can cause serious complications like blindness, brain damage, and even death. An estimated 3 million people contracted the disease every year in the late 1950s, before the vaccine was available. The CDC announced measles was eliminated from the US in the year 2000. RUBELLA leads to brain damage and birth defects in infants. Vaccinations for rubella became available in the late 1960s. The New York Times reported in 2015 that rubella had been eliminated from the Western hemisphere.”

“Six Infectious Diseases,” Business Insider, June 14, 2019

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