Health Curriculum: Unit 5--Main text: Grades 7-11

Fighting Disease:
Health At The End Of The Millennium
Another Wired Curriculum from The United Nations CyberSchoolBus

	Introduction
	How They Work
	How They Spread
	Poverty and Disease
	Prevention
	Immunization

Unit 5
Treatment and Prevention

The Social Body
Immunization | Treatment | Social Improvements | Public Health

Immunization

One of the most sophisticated and effective means of augmenting the body's own defenses against disease is vaccination. By vaccinating large numbers of children and adults against specific diseases, one not only prevents the disease from affecting a person, but begins to gradually weed it out of that particular society. The virus will have fewer and fewer human hosts to survive in, until no one is left without immunity and therefore the virus, with no host to live off, disappears. This, ultimately, is the goal of immunization campaigns.

And this, in fact, was how smallpox was eradicated and how polio has been fought against until now when it is on the brink of eradication. Today, 80% of all children are immunized against five lethal diseases.

However, large-scale immunization campaigns require supplies of vaccines, and needles, along with competent health professionals and educational materials that inform the public of the reasons for and effects of vaccination. Many countries have set up national immunization days or weeks, during which large segments of the population are immunized.

Unit 6 will focus on immunization.

The Social Body:
Immunization - Treatment - Social Improvements - Public Health

[ Objectives | Summary | Main Text | Activities ]