Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Therapy

Vaccines and Prevention

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate a separate immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate injury from infection. When a necessarily large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, this results in herd immunity. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified; for example, influenza vaccine, HPV vaccine and chicken pox vaccine. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is mainly responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the control of diseases such as polio, measles, and tetanus from much of the world. The World Health Organization reports that licensed vaccines are currently available to prevent or donate to the prevention and control of twenty-five preventable infections.