What is It Like to Die With a Vaccine Preventable Disease?

Do you know why we have vaccines? One of the reasons is because of how terrible dying with a vaccine preventable disease is…

Dying isn't guaranteed if you get a vaccine preventable disease, but it isn't worth the risk when safe and effective vaccines are available. — Everyone who got a now vaccine-preventable disease didn’t die, but those who did aren’t around to post on twitter… (survivorship bias).

And of course there is the fact that so many people are affected by those vaccine preventable diseases, many of which can cause serious symptoms and have complications, even if you do survive.

What is It Like to Die With a Vaccine Preventable Disease?

But what is it like to die with a vaccine preventable disease?

Anti-vaccine influencers and the zealots who follow them like to push the idea that no one dies from vaccine preventable diseases any more.

While it is true that you are much less likely to die with a vaccine preventable disease if you are vaccinated and protected and/or most people around you are vaccinated, there is no denying that vaccine preventable diseases are still very deadly.

Dying with Tetanus

Consider what it is like to die with a vaccine preventable disease like tetanus.

Remember, tetanus causes you to have severe muscle spasms, which is why it is also called lockjaw, painful muscle stiffness, seizures, and eventually death.

The spasms cause people suffering with tetanus to develop opisthotonos, with severe arching of their back, as only their head and feet touch their bed.

“Most of the victims were bright active boys, aged from 6 to 18 years, and they were doomed to die the most awful death known to medical science, a death the agony of which is probably not paralleled even by the tortures of the Inquisition.”
Fourth of July Injuries and Tetanus. The Seventh Annual Compilation by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It is a most terrible way to die and has been equated to the “tortures of the Inquisition!”

“On the sixth day, painful muscle spasms of the face resembling a smile and opisthotonos posture were noted. She could not lift her right arm and passive motion of this limb caused severe pain and generalized muscle spasms. Generalized tetanus was diagnosed.”
Risus sardonicus

And eerily, they will likely die with the characteristic grinning smile of tetanus, risus sardonicus, with bared teeth and contracted facial muscles.

Dying with Diphtheria

And then there’s diphtheria.

There is a good reason that diphtheria was known as “the Strangling Angel of children!”

“At autopsy the most striking findings were in the upper airway where yellow adherent material was present in the pharynx covering the tonsils. This was associated with cervical lymphadenopathy and a pseudomembrane which extended from the epiglottis throughout the entire larynx into the trachea and bronchi (Fig. 1). Histology showed desquamation of lining epithelium in the upper airway with extensive fibrinopurulent debris. Cervical lymph nodes were congested with necrotic germinal centers and the lungs were oedematous and haemorrhagic. A postmortem nasal swab grew Corynebacterium diphtheria. Death was due to acute respiratory failure complicating diphtheria.”
Diphtheriae ‘The strangling angel’ of children

The exotoxin of Corynebacterium diphtheria causes a thick film or coating to form in the victims throat, making it hard to swallow and breath.

“The croupy symptoms come on gradually. At first there is a slight huskiness of the voice and rather a hoarse cough, but no interference with breathing. Soon, however, the child feels the want of air as the membrane fills up the air passages. Restlessness, with a worried look in the face, come on, and the cough has a suppressed sound. The voice gradually becomes whispering and is finally lost. As the struggle for air becomes more intense the soft parts of the chest suck in with each inspiration, and the extremities become blue. These patients almost always die, unless surgical means of relief to open the wind-pipe are employed, and even then a large proportion perish.”
Diphtheria

Tragically, even with treatment with antibiotics and anti-toxin, about 10% of people with respiratory diphtheria still die.

Dying with Hib

While dying with tetanus and diphtheria certainly sound horrible, let’s not forget the horror of Hib!

In the pre-vaccine era, Hib caused epiglottitis, meningitis, and pneumonia - all life-threatening diseases that are now prevented by the Hib vaccine. — In the pre-vaccine era, Hib caused epiglottitis, meningitis, and pneumonia – all life-threatening diseases that are now prevented by the Hib vaccine.

Children with Hib can develop epiglottitis, meningitis, or pneumonia.

“The child seemed well just hours before, but now is running a fever, breathing abnormally and insists on sitting up and leaning forward with his jaw jutted forward.”
Dangerous Infection Resembles Croup

As with diphtheria, children with epiglottitis died because they can’t breath.

But couldn’t you just put them on a ventilator to help them breath?

Well, that’s the hard part! Their epiglottis typically gets so swollen and inflamed that it becomes hard to pass an endotracheal tube to their lungs. In the pre-vaccine era, larger hospitals typically had specialized teams with an ENT doctor and an anesthesiologist available on call to get these kids on a ventilator.

Dying with Pertussis

Pertussis or whooping cough is another now vaccine preventable disease that is life-threatening because it causes breathing problems, including apnea.

“We stood anxiously in the pediatrics intensive care unit (PICU), waiting for an update from Riley’s doctor. We had come down to the PICU earlier that morning, after learning Riley’s suspected whooping cough had now developed into pneumonia. While I knew that it was the best place for him, I couldn’t ignore the anxious faces of the other parents who walked past Riley’s room, or the draw that said “baptism gowns”. It was a stark reminder that not every child who enters intensive care, leaves. “
Light for Riley – The Last 24 hours

If you are thinking that pertussis just causes an annoying, lingering cough, that’s because some of those infected folks are vaccinated or partially vaccinated.

If you are unvaccinated, pertussis is much, much worse.

Dying with Meningococcemia

And then there’s meningococcal disease…

It is really hard to understand how some anti-vaccine influencers can push misinformation about vaccines after taking care of children with meningococcemia.

Children who, if they survive, may lose fingers, toes, arms, and or legs.

Dying with Measles

What about measles?

Measles is often described as a “harmless killer” because most people do survive having measles, but it can also be deadly.

But even when it is “harmless,” know that you will suffer with a week of very high fever and irritability!

“As a pediatrician in Seattle in the 1990s, I occasionally saw cases of this disease, and I will never forget them. One patient, a 5-year-old boy, had a high fever, a rash covering his entire body, and red, watery eyes that were so sensitive to light he had to stay in semidarkness. He felt miserable and irritable, and he cried all the time.”
A regrettable milestone in the measles epidemic

And yes people do die with measles – typically because they have complications, such as pneumonia, seizures, or encephalitis.

“But fate sometimes is relentless: in April of 2006 our boy said good-bye forever. An unexpected thrust of brain inflammation put him into a vegetative state. Within only hours he lost everything he had learned during his young life. His last words were: “I don’t know who you are”. It’s going to haunt us for the rest of our lives.”
How measles can change a life

And even if they survive having measles, they can die later with SSPE.

Dying with Hepatitis B

It’s true that babies and young children don’t usually die with hepatitis B infections. Instead, as they are likely to develop chronic hepatitis B, they can die later, with hepatitic encephalopathy and esophageal varices (bleeding) and after developing cirrhosis and/or liver cancer.

“I was sent for a Fibroscan and a liver biopsy. I was given medication to take but this me vomit and gave me nose bleeds. Six weeks later I was taken off the medication and was diagnosed with decompensated cirrhosis – the damage to my liver had progressed so far that it was starting to fail. By that point I was also experiencing hepatic encephalopathy and started to lose my memory. I was so ill with it I had to take three months off work.

“Two years later and I’m under the care of King’s College Hospital which is brilliant. I’m on about ten different meds a day but fortunately my liver function is starting to stabilise. In the future I’ll probably need a liver transplant but for now I’m okay.

“I’ll never know why I was given the all clear as a baby. There is still some stigma around viral hepatitis but it’s really important to get tested if you’re at risk – as my experience shows, the earlier the diagnosis, the better.”
Steven’s story: “I’ll never know why I was given the all clear as a baby”

Or they can just get vaccinated and protected!

Dying with Polio

We often think of polio as ‘the Crippler.’

“Almost all accounts of acute polio recall the intense pain associated with the paralysis of the muscles. It was painful to lie in bed, to be covered by a sheet, or to be touched by the nurses. Dorothea Nudelman recalled that ‘‘all of it was unspeakable— the stiffness, fever, chills, and agony of being moved, even touched, for a change of bed sheets or night shirt. Total paralysis was like being trapped in a nightmare where you waited to wake up.’’
Polio – Biographies of Disease

It is also important to remember that polio is a killer.

How do you die with polio?

Your chest muscles becomes paralyzed and you can’t breath.

“Patients who had bulbar polio were more seriously impaired. Bulbar polio affected the brain stem and the nerves of the face and head that control swallowing and breathing. The iron lung was not always effective in cases of bulbar polio, and about 60 percent of such patients died even if they were placed in an iron lung.”
Polio – Biographies of Disease

These are the patients with polio who ended up in an iron lung, if it was available, but even then, there was no guarantee that they would survive.

And then, even for those who survived, they later were to find that they were at risk to get post polio syndrome!

Dying with Rubella

Do people really die with rubella?

No, most of the children and adults who get rubella actually have very mild symptoms or no symptoms.

Dying with congenital rubella syndrome is common, as many infants don't make it to their first birthday. — She probably also doesn’t remember all of the babies born with congenital rubella syndrome before we had a rubella vaccine…

The reason we have a rubella vaccine is that if a women gets rubella while she is pregnant and she isn’t immune, her baby might die or could be born with the severe congenital malformations of congenital rubella syndrome.

That’s what happened during the global rubella pandemic of the 1960s, when nearly 20,000 babies were born with congenital rubella syndrome in the United States.

“By 1988, an all-time low of 223 rubella cases and 4 CRS cases were reported. However, in 1989, the number of reported rubella cases increased nearly 2-fold to 396. This increase occurred concurrently with the measles resurgence, which was attributed in part to failure to ensure timely vaccination of preschool-aged children.”
The Changing Epidemiology of Rubella in the 1990s

And anytime rubella vaccination rates drop…

Dying with HPV

Yes, even in this age of women getting regular PAP tests, many do still get and die with cervical cancer.

“Even though my cervical cancer was found through screening and was considered “early stage”, I still needed to go through chemotherapy and radiation. My doctors also recommended a radical hysterectomy.”
Tamika A HPV Story

A cancer that can be prevented with the HPV vaccine, which actually prevents more than just cervical cancer.

Dying with a Vaccine Preventable Disease

Deaths from vaccine preventable diseases are rare these days.

At least they are if you live in a country where most people are vaccinated and protected.

Let’s continue to work to control these diseases, reduce these preventable deaths, and not move backwards by skipping or delaying your child’s vaccines, intentionally leaving them at risk to get sick.

More on Vaccine Preventable Diseases

Last Updated on July 17, 2024

What is It Like to Die With a Vaccine Preventable Disease?