Vaccines Statistics and Numbers

To help you get better educated about vaccines, it can help to learn some vaccine statistics and some other numbers behind vaccines.

Including the numbers that anti-vaccine folks throw around.

Vaccine Statistics

For all of the talk of some folks delaying or skipping vaccines, do you know how many vaccines are given each day?

According to the CDC, from 2006 to 2017, at least 3,454,269,356 doses of vaccines were distributed in the United States. These are the vaccines that are covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, such as DTaP, MMR, Hepatitis A and B, HPV, and flu, etc.

That’s over 287 million doses each year, with many of those doses going to the nearly 4 million children who are born in the United States each year.

How about worldwide?

That’s harder to know, but consider that the World Health Organization reports that 85% of infants worldwide, or almost 100 million infants, get at least:

• 3 doses of DTP
• 3 doses of hepatitis B
• at least one doses of measles
• 3 doses of polio

Plus, an increasing number are getting vaccines to protect them against Hib, pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, HPV, meningitis A, mumps, rubella, tetanus, and yellow fever.

“UNICEF supplies vaccines reaching 45 per cent of the world’s children under five years old as part of its commitment to improving child survival.”

How many vaccine doses are we talking about?

A lot. UNICEF alone buys 2.8 billion doses of vaccines each year! Those vaccines are then distributed to children in over 100 countries.

Vaccine-Preventable Disease Statistics

As impressive as the number of vaccines that are given each year are the numbers about what happens when we give vaccines:

• there are 2 to 3 million fewer deaths in the world each year because people are vaccinated and protected
• in the Unites States, every $1 spent on vaccines provides $3 in direct benefits and up to $10 in benefits if you include societal costs
• in developing countries, every $1 spent on vaccines provides $16 in direct benefits, but that goes up to $44 when you take “into account the broader economic impact of illness”
• for children born in the United States during “1994–2013, routine childhood immunization was estimated to prevent 322 million illnesses (averaging 4.1 illnesses per child) and 21 million hospitalizations (0.27 per child) over the course of their lifetimes and avert 732,000 premature deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses,” and it also “will potentially avert $402 billion in direct costs and $1.5 trillion in societal costs because of illnesses prevented”
• only two countries continue to have wild polio – Afghanistan and Pakistan – and together, they only had 21 cases in 2017

Still, only one vaccine-preventable disease, smallpox, has been eradicated.

And worldwide, more than 3 million people still die from vaccine-preventable diseases every year, many of them young children.

Other Vaccine Numbers

There are some other numbers about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases folks should know:

• the number of pediatricians who got a $3 million vaccine bonus – zero
• the number of doses of vaccines kids get today – 69 72 54 doses (including yearly flu shots) by age 18
• the number of vaccines that contain antifreeze as an ingredient – zero
• the number of vaccines that contain peanut oil as an ingredient – zero
• the number of studies that link vaccines to autism – zero
• the number of diseases that homeopathic vaccines can prevent – zero
• the number of anti-vaccine sites that mention any benefits of vaccines – zero
• the number of VAERS reports that are thought to be unrelated to a vaccine – 53%
• the number of VAERS reports that are thought to be definitely caused by a vaccine – 3%
• the number of definite VAERS reports that were serious – 1% (anaphylaxis)
• the number of myths about vaccines that can scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids – 100s
• the number of measles outbreaks that have been caused by a vaccine strain – zero
• how long you have to stay in quarantine if you are unvaccinated and are exposed to someone with measles – at least 21 days
• the number of new vaccines in the pipeline – 300

And yes, $4,060,857,713.42 has been paid by the Vaccine Court for 6,355 compensated claims for vaccine injuries since 1989, during which time billions of doses of vaccines were given.

“This means that for every 1 million doses of vaccine that were distributed, 1 individual was compensated.”

Vaccine Injury Compensation Data

And many of those claims were simply settled.

Vaccines work. Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are necessary.

Get vaccinated and protected.

What’s the biggest number you should be thinking about? Way too many people are still getting and dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.

What to Know About Vaccine Statistics

Although more work needs to be done to protect more people, vaccine statistics clearly show that vaccines work and that they are safe and necessary.

More on Vaccines Statistics

• Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
• Dear Anti-Vaxxers,
• Answers To Frequently Asked Questions About Immunizations
• Vaccine Injury Compensation Data
• WHO – Immunization coverage
• UNICEF Vaccines Supply and Market Overview
• Gavi facts and figures
• WHO – Data, statistics, and graphs
• CDC – Vaccine Preventable Disease Data and Statistics (Pink Book)
• The Value of Investing in Vaccines
• Study – Economic Evaluation of the Routine Childhood Immunization Program in the United States, 2009
• CDC – Benefits from Immunization During the Vaccines for Children Program Era — United States, 1994–2013
• Expanding Use of Vaccines Could Save Up to $44 for Every Dollar Spent, Study Suggests
• Study – Return On Investment From Childhood Immunization In Low- And Middle-Income Countries, 2011-20.
• CDC – Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999 Impact of Vaccines Universally Recommended for Children — United States, 1990-1998
• Global Immunization: Worldwide Disease Incidence
• Study – Causality assessment of adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)
• CDC – What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?
• 4 Striking statistics about vaccination
• Statistics on Global Vaccinations and Immunizations
• Anti-vaccine statistics – back to simple math again

Last Updated on April 6, 2024