A Look at Childhood Diseases We No Longer Fear

If you ask a pediatrician practicing today to describe a case of paralytic polio, diphtheria, or smallpox, there’s a good chance they’ve never seen one. Not because these diseases aren’t dangerous (they’re every bit as dangerous as they always were), but because vaccines have made them so rare that doctors have practiced without ever encountering them firsthand.

That’s the result of one of modern medicine’s biggest success stories, and it’s worth understanding what these diseases did to families before vaccines existed, and why the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) immunization schedule is still important to follow.

Vaccines That Changed Pediatric Health

Polio 

Before polio vaccines became available in the 1950s, the disease paralyzed more than 15,000 people in the United States every year, and it was one of the most feared illnesses a parent could imagine. Polio spread easily, often in the summer months, and could leave children permanently unable to walk or breathe on their own within days of infection.

Widespread vaccination changed that trajectory dramatically. Globally, vaccination campaigns have prevented an estimated 20 million cases of paralysis since 1988 alone, and reported wild poliovirus cases worldwide have dropped by more than 99%.

Progress isn’t always guaranteed to last, though, especially when vaccination rates drop. Polio still circulates in a small number of countries, and outbreaks can and do occur wherever vaccination rates fall. 

Smallpox

Smallpox is the starkest example of what vaccines can accomplish. For most of history, smallpox killed roughly one in three people it infected, scarring and blinding many of the survivors. It’s estimated to have killed hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century alone.

Following a global vaccination and surveillance campaign led by the World Health Organization beginning in the 1960s, the last natural case of smallpox was recorded in Somalia in 1977. In 1980, the World Health Assembly officially declared smallpox eradicated, the only human disease in history to be completely wiped out. Routine smallpox vaccination isn’t part of childhood immunizations today for the simple reason that the disease no longer exists in the wild.

Diphtheria

Diphtheria doesn’t get talked about much anymore, but that’s a good thing. In the early 1920s, before a vaccine was available, diphtheria caused 100,000 to 200,000 cases and 13,000 to 15,000 deaths in the U.S. every single year. Many of them in children, since the infection could make breathing difficult or impossible.

After diphtheria vaccines were introduced and folded into routine childhood immunization programs, cases shrank. Between 1996 and 2018, the entire United States had just 14 cases of reported respiratory diphtheria and a single death. A disease that once killed thousands of American children every year is now something most physicians will never diagnose in their entire career.

Why This History Still Matters for Your Family

Some can look at how rare these diseases have become and assume the danger has passed. But polio, smallpox-family viruses, and diphtheria didn’t become rare on their own. Sustained, on-time vaccination is what keeps them that way. Diphtheria outbreaks with thousands of cases have occurred in recent decades in places where vaccination coverage dropped. Polio has reappeared in under-vaccinated communities. Rare doesn’t mean gone, it means the protection is working, and it depends on staying current.

Keeping Your Family’s Immunizations On Track in Memphis & Germantown

Whether your child needs to catch up on missed doses, is due for back-to-school vaccines like Tdap or Meningitis, or you want to confirm they’re on schedule, staying current is the easiest way to keep the diseases of the past exactly where they belong, in the past.

The Shot Nurse offers walk-in immunizations at our Memphis and Germantown, TN locations, no appointment necessary. Our team can review your child’s immunization record, catch up on missed doses, and make sure they’re protected according to the AAP schedule.