Vaccines - Are You Protected?

- Dr Sarah Jarvis

As a medical student, I spent three months working in a slum hospital in a major city in India. It certainly gave me lots of experience, and not in a good way. I was horrified to see children dying from diphtheria or paralysed by polio – conditions I take for granted I’ll never see in the UK. Immunisations have saved more lives than any public health advance of the last century, apart from perhaps clean water.

The first successful vaccine was invented by an Englishman, Edward Jenner, against smallpox in the 18th Century. They have been offered on the NHS for almost 70 years – back then, babies were immunised against whooping cough, tuberculosis and diphtheria. They were also immunised against smallpox, which has thankfully now been eradicated. But could you name the ones you’ve had? 9 in 10 of us know we’ve had them, but more than half of us don’t know which ones.