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Does vaccination work? |
No medication is 100% effective. The protection triggered by vaccines varies from 50% (cholera) to 95-98% (measles). So, even if everyone in Australia were vaccinated, there would still be people who remained at risk of catching the infections.
Obviously, if the disease occurred at all, it would then be occurring in vaccinated people. However, we would lose the risk of epidemics because these people would be randomly scattered all over Australia. It would be unlikely they all would be exposed to the germ at the same time.
For instance, before 1998 the Australian rate of vaccination for measles was low. In epidemics in NSW in 1981 and 1984 there were 200,000 cases with 2,850 recorded hospital admissions. In the NSW epidemic of 1993-94, there were 271 cases of measles in the Northern Rivers with at least 15 children hospitalised.
Following the mass vaccination campaign for children in 1998, cases in the Northern Rivers fell to six. The few cases since recorded in this area have mostly been in adults who have not been adequately vaccinated and contracted the disease overseas.
For further information and references see Why vaccinate? article
Are vaccines safe?
Diphtheria
Channels 7 & 9 air immunisation stories
An afternoon with immunisation expert, Professor Margaret Burgess
North Coast chickenpox alert issued
Chickenpox alert
Passenger with measles on flight from Bangkok
Why Vaccinate?
Meningococcal C funding extended
Reasons Why People Choose Not to Vaccinate
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