About vaccines
Vaccines protect people against serious and life-threatening infectious diseases. In the past, many people died of diseases that can now be prevented through vaccination. Diseases and complications that used to be common have now become rare or even disappeared completely thanks to widespread vaccination.
Some of these complications include:
- paralysis, lifelong disabilities, or death from polio
- blindness due to measles
- deafness, cataracts or learning disabilities in babies born to mothers who had rubella in early pregnancy.
Vaccination helps prevent the spread of diseases in communities. When a large percentage of a population is vaccinated, infectious diseases cannot easily spread. This is known as 'community immunity' (also referred to as 'herd immunity').
For more information on community immunity, see:
Benefits of vaccination
How do vaccines protect us and stop the spread of disease? Find out their benefits for individuals and the community.
Getting vaccinated is the best way to build immunity against vaccine-preventable diseases, as opposed to achieving immunity by getting the disease. Vaccination prevents people from developing the symptoms of the disease, which can be severe.
Vaccination programmes have wider societal benefits and can help reduce the social, psychological, and financial burdens of diseases by reducing pressures on healthcare and social care systems.
Q&A
It is natural to have questions about vaccines when making the decision to vaccinate for yourself or your loved ones. This page offers some of the most common questions people can have about vaccines, with fact-based answers.
Vaccine safety and side effects
Who should be careful about getting vaccinated and when will doctors advise against it?
How vaccines work
Vaccines teach our immune systems how to fight off disease. Learn how they work to protect us from getting sick.
Approval of vaccines in the EU
Find out how authorities in Europe test to make sure vaccines are safe and effective before they are approved for use.
When to vaccinate
Find national vaccination schedules for EU/EEA countries offering vaccinations for specific ages and populations.
New and expecting parents
Find out how vaccines can protect both parents and their babies before, during and after pregnancy.
The history of vaccination
Vaccines have been in use for over 200 years, since the first ever vaccine was developed to protect against smallpox, a disease that killed up to half of all those infected and that took a major toll on human civilisation, in 1796.