FACTS ABOUT VACCINE-PREVENTABLE DISEASE

Influenza
10 to 40 percent of healthy children will contract influenza each year. Death can occur in both chronically ill and previously healthy children.

Among 153 pediatric influenza-associated deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2003-2004, nearly two-thirds occurred in children younger than 5.

Meningococcal meningitis
Approximately 1,300 cases of invasive meningococcal disease occur each year in the United States.

The fatality rate of meningococcal meningitis is as high as 20 percent in adolescents, with as many as 20 percent of survivors suffering hearing loss, neurological damage, permanent skin scarring or loss of limbs.

Pertussis (commonly known as whooping cough)
Infected adolescents and adults may develop a mild but prolonged cough and subsequently transmit pertussis (whooping cough) to unimmunized or incompletely immunized infants and children.

LEARN MORE FROM THE BOOK