What has been the impact of vaccines?
Vaccines are considered to be one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th Century. Vaccine-preventable disease levels in the U.S. are at or near record lows. However, we cannot take high immunization coverage levels for granted. Before polio vaccine was available, 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic polio were reported each year in the United States. These annual epidemics of polio often left thousands of victims–mostly children–in braces, crutches, wheelchairs, and iron lungs. The effects were life-long. Development of polio vaccines and implementation of polio immunization programs have nearly eradicated paralytic polio caused by wild polio viruses globally. Before measles immunization was available, nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles. An average of 450 measles-associated deaths were reported each year between 1953 and 1963. Measles is no longer endemic in the United States In 1964-1965, before rubella immunization was used routinely in the U.S., there was an ep
