Health Curriculum: Unit 1--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 1
Infectious Diseases: A Concern for All

The victories

A number of key battles against diseases have been won since the 19th century, mainly through the development of vaccines but also through the establishment of national and international health programmes. In fact, for a while it seemed as if the long human struggle for control over infectious diseases might be over:

	Vaccines were developed to boost our immunity, with the first vaccine invented by Dr Edward Jenner in England 200 years ago.
	Immunization programmes raised the immunization rate of children around the world from 5% to 80%.
	As a result, six major childhood diseases - diphtheria, measles, pertussis (whooping cough), poliomyelitis (polio), tetanus and tuberculosis - were coming under control.
	Anti-microbial drugs and effective treatment were suppressing countless infections.
	Smallpox was eradicated, with the last recorded case occurring in 1977 (the disease was declared eradicated in 1980).
	Several other diseases were, and still are, on their way out - polio and leprosy, to take two examples.

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