Hemophilus influenza type b, or Hib disease, can cause serious, sometimes life-threatening health problems in infants and young children. The Hib vaccine is very effective in preventing Hib disease. It is recommended for all children under five years old by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Hib Diseases
The Hib bacteria that cause disease are spread mostly by people who carry them in their noses or throats and are not ill, but they are also spread by ill persons who cough or sneeze. Hib bacteria usually stay in the nose and throat, but they can also cause more generalized invasive infections, which can be very serious and even deadly. The most common Hib disease is meningitis---an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal chord. Other Hib diseases include epiglottitis---an infection and swelling in the throat, pneumonia, skin, blood, joint and bone infections.
Dangers of Hib Diseases
Infants and young children are especially vulnerable to Hib disease. Hib meningitis has a mortality rate of two to five percent, despite antibiotic treatment. Complications of Hib meningitis occur in 15 to 30 percent of patients, and they include blindness, deafness, mental retardation and learning disabilities. Epiglottitis can also lead to difficulty breathing, which can become life-threatening.
Hib Vaccine and its Effectiveness
Hib vaccine is an inactivated vaccine; it contains only a part of the bacterium, and therefore cannot cause the Hib disease. According to the CDC, vaccination is the best way to protect infants and young children from Hib disease. The vaccine provides more immunity to Hib disease than a natural infection, according to the National Network for Immunization Information. After two or three doses of Hib vaccine, more than 95 percent of infants are protected.
Hib Vaccine Safety
Chances of adverse reactions following Hib vaccination are extremely small, and most people do not develop any problems. Like any other medicine, a vaccine can cause severe allergic reactions in people allergic to one or more of its ingredients. One out of four children develop transient redness, warmth or swelling at the injection site, and one out of 20 children develop a fever over 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Furthermore, Hib vaccine is free from the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which is potentially toxic to the nervous system.
Hib Vaccine Benefits
When bacteria invade areas of the body that are normally germ-free, they can cause very severe disease. According to the CDC, there were about 20,000 cases of invasive Hib diseases each year in the United States before an Hib vaccine became available in 1987, and Hib was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in the United States, with 12,000 affected children each year, more than half of them younger than 12 months. Even with antibiotic treatment, about 1,000 children died each year from Hib meningitis. But since the vaccine was introduced, the incidence of Hib disease in infants and children in the U.S. has decreased by more than 99 percent. The CDC warns, however, that it is still very important to vaccinate infants, because if vaccination rates get too low, the disease could return.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Is Your Child Protected Against Hib Disease?
- National Network for Immunization Information: Hib
- Immunization Action Coalition: Vaccine Information for the public and health professionals: Hib Disease
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Thimerosal in Vaccines
