Immunize Your Child Against These Diseases
- Measles can cause blindness, deafness and brain damage.
- Polio is a viral disease with three known strains that can cause permanent paralysis, deformity and death.
- Diphtheria, a serious bacterial infection, can cause pneumonia, heart failure, nerve damage and death by suffocation.
- Pertussis or whooping cough can cause convulsions, pneumonia and brain damage.
- Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) is a major cause of infections, like meningitis, where there is swelling of the brain.
- Hepatitis B is a viral disease that can cause long-term liver disease, liver cancer and death.
- Varicella or chickenpox is a contagious viral disease that sometimes causes painful itching and high fevers.
- Mumps is an acute viral disease with painful swelling around the jaw and can cause central nervous system damage, deafness, painful inflammation of the male sex glands, kidney inflammation and infections in other major organs.
- Tetanus or lockjaw is a noncontagious disease that enters the body through wounds. It can occur in adults as well as children and can cause muscle spasms, severe nervous system damage and death.
- Rubella or the German measles is a mild infection in children and a dangerous disease in pregnant women. It can cause miscarriage, stillbirth or severe birth defects.
Source: Missouri Department of Health, Bureau of Immunizations
