Vaccine-preventable diseases: key facts

Serious infectious diseases like polio, measles and the human papillomavirus (HPV) can and have been prevented by vaccines over the past decades. However, misinformation and disinformation on vaccine safety and effectiveness have been fuelling vaccine hesitancy at global level. Vaccine hesitancy has become a top public health threat. To address this, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) continues to evaluate and monitor vaccines in the European Union (EU). EMA's message is that vaccine benefits have constantly outweighed their risks.

Vaccine-preventable diseases include infectious diseases like polio, tetanus, whooping cough, measles and the human papillomavirus (HPV).

Effective vaccine strategies have a proven track-record against such diseases. 

For instance, large-scale vaccination campaigns eradicated smallpox as a global disease in 1980. 

Similar health measures eliminated polio from the Americas by 1994, and from the Western Pacific by 2000.

Lives saved by vaccination

Vaccination has saved 154 million lives - 5 lives every minute. 

95% of these were in children younger than 5 years of age. 

This is according to a study from The Lancet on the contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health, carried out between 1974 and 2024.

Lives saved by vaccination: Text version

154 million lives saved by vaccination, from 1974 to 2024.

Lives saved per type of disease: 

• Measles - 93,7 million
• Tetanus - 27,9 million
• Pertussis - 13,2 million
• Tuberculosis - 10,9 million
• Other diseases - 3,8 million
• Haemophilus influenzae type B - 2,8 million
• Poliomyelitis - 1,6 million

Like any other medicines, vaccines may have side effects. But their benefits generally outweigh their risks. For instance, the most likely vaccine side effect is soreness at the injection site.

However, widespread misinformation and disinformation about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines have fuelled vaccine hesitancy. 

This has led many people to reject vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy is one of the top 10 global public health threats, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

For more information, see:

• Public health threats
• The Lancet: Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization

Also on this topic

• Measles
• Human papillomavirus (HPV)

Facts and figures on vaccine-preventable diseases

According to The Lancet, vaccination is estimated to have reduced global infant mortality by 40% between 1974 and 2024.

Moreover, each life saved through immunisation resulted in an average 66 years of full health. This meant living without the long-term problems that many diseases cause.

40%

Reduction of global infant mortality thanks to vaccination

Statistics covering the period between 1974 and 2024 (The Lancet)

66

Years of full health

Average results of immunisation against vaccine-preventable diseases (The Lancet)

EMA's role

All vaccines undergo rigorous scientific evaluation for quality, safety and effectiveness before approval. 

Regulators assess vaccines and all their components before they can be placed on the market.  

In the EU, EMA and national competent authorities continuously monitor all the vaccines they authorise. 

They carefully evaluate side effects reported with vaccines. They also take any necessary action to protect patients.

For more information on EMA's role in evaluating and monitoring medicines, including vaccines, see:

• What we do