Diphtheria

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Diphtheria is a serious and highly infectious disease, which is now rare in developed countries because of immunisation.

Death rates range from 3-25% and are especially high if the heart is involved early. The disease is epidemic in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Because of the success of the immunisation programme in the Western world, generations of parents have grown up knowing nothing about this disease. This leads to the risk that they may neglect immunisation.

Outbreaks in Scandinavia have shown that even if the rate of immunisation in children is high, levels of immunity can fall off in adult life enough to allow the disease to occur. Re-immunisation in adults every ten years is advised by some experts.

The Schick test, in which a tiny quantity of diphtheria toxin protein is injected into the skin of the forearm, can show whether an individual is (still) immune to diphtheria.