Are vaccines an effective tool to prevent disease?

I'll gather the latest evidence on how well vaccines prevent disease.

Yes, vaccines are one of the most effective tools to prevent disease, according to major health authorities and scientific evidence.

> Vaccination is one of the most effective ways to prevent diseases

> Immunization is a global health success story, saving millions of lives every year. Vaccines reduce risks of getting a disease by working with your body’s natural defenses to build protection

> We now have vaccines to prevent more than 30 life-threatening diseases and infections, helping people of all ages live longer, healthier lives

Effectiveness in preventing deaths and disease:

•Immunization currently prevents 3.5 million to 5 million deaths every year from diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), influenza and measles

•Vaccination is one of the most effective interventions against infectious diseases and is estimated to prevent 2-3 million deaths annually

•Over the past 50 years, essential vaccines against just 14 diseases have saved at least 154 million lives

•Vaccines train your immune system to create antibodies, just as it does when it’s exposed to a disease. However, because vaccines contain only killed or weakened forms of germs like viruses or bacteria, they do not cause the disease or put you at risk of its complications

•Vaccines are also critical to the prevention and control of infectious disease outbreaks

High efficacy for individual vaccines:

•Most childhood vaccines are over 90% effective at protecting against disease

•Most vaccines are between 90-99% effective

•The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that vaccines effectively produced immunity in 85-95 percent of patients

Historical evidence of disease reduction and eradication:

•Vaccines can provide cost-effective, long-term protection and have resulted in the eradication of two major pathogens, rinderpest and smallpox, as well as the local elimination of others, such as measles

•The introduction of a vaccine has, in many cases, led to a very large decrease in the incidence of the targeted disease — such as the 96% decrease in the incidence of polio that occurred within 7 years of the introduction of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines

Effectiveness against severe outcomes, including for newer vaccines:

•Vaccination is shown to be quite effective in limiting the more severe course of the disease in symptomatic patients

•Our results show that vaccines are effective in both limiting the spread of COVID infection and containing a more severe course of disease in symptomatic patients. High vaccination coverage has been shown to be a reasonably effective tool

Vaccines are not 100% effective for every individual and effectiveness can vary by vaccine, age, immune status, and over time, but at the population level they dramatically reduce cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and transmission when coverage is high. They are also considered among the most successful and cost-effective medical interventions ever developed.

Citations (2)

1who.intGovernment
Vaccines and immunization: Vaccine safety
Backs: “Yes, vaccines are one of the most effective tools to prevent disease, according to major health authorities and scientific evidence.”
2who.intGovernment
Vaccines and immunization
Backs: “Immunization is a global health success story, saving millions of lives every year. Vaccines reduce risks of getting a disease by working with your body’s natural defenses to build protection”