Text IX. Immunization

Immunization is recognized by the medical profession, health authorities, and the government in Britain as one of the major preventive measures in the achievement of child health. Currently, approximate acceptance rates for immunization are 85 per cent poliomyelitis, diphtheria, and tetanus, 80 per cent for rubella, 60 per cent for measles, and 55 per cent for whooping cough.

The low figure for measles is probably related to public apathy about the significance of this disease which in Britain, in contrast with many of the developing countries, is relatively mild. Another factor is health authorities’ lack of vigour in promoting measles immunization.

With whooping cough immunization the position is different. Reports in the early 1970s that whooping cough vaccine might cause permanent brain damage were taken up by the media and presented virtually as established fact. This resulted in a dramatic drop in the uptake of whooping cough vaccine to as little as 16 per cent following earlier uptakes of more than 80 per cent. Very soon the effect of this became evident with a recrudescence of whooping cough in epidemic form, each epidemic being associated with a significant mortality and morbidity. The medical profession and the public began to realize that the risk of whooping cough far outweighed any possible risk from immunization. Uptake has now risen again to more than 60 per cent.

The most recent evidence suggests that whooping cough vaccine has little if anything to do with the development of permanent brain damage. Brain damage is common in childhood for a wide variety of reasons. Immunization was often carried out in children who already were, or were destined to become, brain damaged for reasons which had nothing to do with immunization.

33. Revision questions:

1. What are characteristic symptoms of sepsis?

2. What does treatment of sepsis consist of?

3. What is duration of sepsis treatment?

4. What kind of disease is osteomyelitis?

5. What infections of maternal origin do you know?

6. Who was the first to describe the various consequences of intrauterine infection of the fetus with the rubella virus?

7. Whom is chronic liver disease more common in?

8. What is pathogenesis of Fifth disease?

9. What is the difference between HIV and AIDS?

10. Is immunization in infants and children important? Why?