What happens when immunization coverage rates are too low?

In other countries, when immunization rates have dropped significantly, diseases have reappeared — often with fatal results.

For example, people in Ireland became concerned because of unfounded reports of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Immunization rates fell sharply in 2000 — and the number of measles cases soared from 148 cases in 1999 to 1,200 in 2000. Several children died in the outbreak.

Read more: 
immunization coverage