We know that vaccine-preventable diseases can be life-threatening.
In the pre-vaccine era, when these diseases were much more common, way too many people died, but still, most people did recover.
They didn’t always survive without complications though.
Tragically, we are starting to see more of these complications as more kids are now getting some of these vaccine-preventable diseases again.
Complications of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
That we can prevent these serious complications is another benefit of getting vaccinated!
How serious?
Have you ever seen someone who has survived a meningococcal infection?
Do they always have all of their arms and legs?
How about their fingers and toes?
There is a reason that we say that you have to earn your natural immunity. You have to survive these diseases to get it. And you want to survive without any long-term complications, which can include:
- chicken pox – shingles, secondary bacterial infections, pneumonia, meningitis, encephalitis, seizures, transverse myelitis, Reye syndrome, neonatal varicella, congenital varicella syndrome
- congenital rubella syndrome – neonatal death, heart problems, deafness, cataracts, intellectual disability, liver and spleen damage, glaucoma, thyroid problems
- diphtheria – myocarditis, heart failure, nerve damage, muscle paralysis
- Haemophilus influenzae type b – meningitis, epiglottitis, pneumonia, osteomyelitis, cellulitis, hearing loss, brain damage, loss of limbs
- hepatitis A – can rarely lead to liver failure
- hepatitis B – chronic hepatitis B, cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer
- HPV – genital warts, cancer
- influenza – parotitis, pneumonia, myocarditis, encephalitis, myositis, rhabdomyolysis, multi-organ failure
- measles –pneumonia, seizures, encephalitis, SSPE
- mumps – orchitis (inflammation of the testicles), oophoritis (inflammation of the ovaries), pancreatitis, meningitis, encephalitis
- pneumococcal disease – pneumonia, mastoiditis, meningitis, bacteremia, sepsis, empyema, pericarditis, hearing loss, brain damage
- pertussis – pneumonia, seizures, apnea, encephalopathy, rib fractures
- polio – meningitis, paralysis, post-polio syndrome
- rabies – it is very rare to survive a rabies infection without treatment
- rotavirus – dehydration, intussusception
- rubella – arthritis, congenital rubella syndrome
- shingles – postherpetic neuralgia, pneumonia, hearing problems, blindness, encephalitis
- tetanus – seizures, laryngospasm, fractures, pulmonary embolism, aspiration pneumonia
- typhoid fever – intestinal perforation, internal bleeding, peritonitis, hepatitis, osteomyelitis, arthritis, meningitis, myocarditis,
- yellow fever – pneumonia, parotitis, sepsis
Anti-vaccine folks rarely talk about the complications of vaccine-preventable diseases. For that matter, they also often push the idea that vaccines don’t even work and that these diseases aren’t even vaccine preventable, don’t they?
Don’t believe them. Vaccines work and they are safe and necessary, especially if you want to avoid these diseases.
More on Complications of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
- Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (Pinkbook)
- Manual for the Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
- CDC – Vaccines and Preventable Diseases
- Learn About Diseases and the Vaccines That Prevent Them
- Vaccine Preventable Diseases Poster
- Study – The impact of immunization programs on 10 vaccine preventable diseases in Italy: 1900-2015.
- Comparison Of The Effects Of Diseases And The Side Effects Of Vaccines
- Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
- Why Vaccinate Against These Vaccine-Preventable Diseases?
- Global Immunization: Worldwide Disease Incidence
- WHO – Vaccines and Diseases
- WHO – Surveillance for Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPDs)
- WHO – Disease Outbreak News
- ProMED
- ECDC – Vaccine-preventable diseases
- Dangers of vaccine preventable diseases
- What Happens When We Don’t Vaccinate?
- Learn About Diseases and the Vaccines That Prevent Them
- Photos of Vaccine Preventable Diseases
- National Foundation for Infectiou
- National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance
- Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
- Study – Severe complications of chickenpox in hospitalised children in the UK and Ireland
- Study – Estimating true hospital morbidity of complications associated with mumps outbreak, England, 2004/05
- Study – Trends in hospital admission rates for whooping cough in England across five decades: database studies