Vaccination Is The Most Common Means Of Preventing...

History of vaccinations Vaccinations are the most common means of preventing childhood infectious diseases. The term vaccination is derived from Variolae vaccinae (smallpox of the cow), the term originally devised by Edward Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 when he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox 1. In 1881, Louis Pasteur suggested that the term vaccination should be extended to denote the newer preparations that were being developed at that time 2. Louis Pasteur developed second generation of vaccines for cholera and anthrax 2 and since then there has been no looking back. Polio vaccination was developed in 1950s 3. Live attenuated vaccines were developed for measles, mumps and rubella during†¦show more content†¦Specifically, estimated combined series (primary and booster series of DTaP, polio, Hib, HepB, varicella, measles and PCV) vaccine coverage for children 19-35 months old in 2014 was 71.6% compared to 56.6% in 2010, which is a significant improvement, though it leaves plenty of scope for further improvement. It is important to achieve higher coverage of vaccinations to maintain herd immunity and prevent re-emergence of previously eradicated communicable diseases. Concept of herd immunity: is it waning? Herd immunity’ refers to the resistance of a group attacked by a disease because of the immunity of a large proportion of the members and the consequent lessening of the likelihood of an infected individual coming into contact with a susceptible individual 9. Herd immunity is achieved by mass immunization against communicable diseases 10. However, not all vaccines are equally effective in providing herd immunity. For instance, though mumps vaccine has been available for several decades, mumps continues to be highly prevalent in several regions of the world, likely due to waning immunity over time and inadequate immunization coverage. Studies suggest that vaccine coverage of almost 90-95% is required to attain effective herd immunity 11. Plans et al. 12 reported that the odds ratio for the