Vaccination and immunisation

Vaccination and Immunisation aims to provide information about current vaccines, programmes and future prospects.  It also has an archive of articles of interest and a question and answer facility. It is not intended to replace the need for individual professional medical advice.

This is an academic website and is not supported by funding from any other organisations.

Infectious disease control

Infectious diseases cause major problems for individuals and communities throughout the world. In part this is due to failure to implement existing control measures - thus measles is still the fourth leading cause of death among children under-5 in developing countries, killing over 1 million people world-wide every year.  In part it reflects the emergence of new conditions - thus 30 to 40 million people live with AIDS or HIV infection, two thirds of them in Sub-Saharan Africa: there are an estimated 3.1 million new HIV infections and 1.5 million AIDS deaths worldwide every year.  And finally it is due to the re-emergence of (previously well controlled) conditions, because of a breakdown in control programmes.  Thus Malaria is a leading cause of death ranked among the top ten causes of death worldwide. As of 1999, there were about 100 countries affected by endemic malaria.  In the late 70's eradication efforts were curtailed in many countries. The trend during the past 20 years has been a rebound in malaria incidence in many geographic regions and increasing drug resistance, especially in Plasmodium falciparum infections.

This website tries to address many issues concerned with both the global and individual control of infectious diseases.