Hib: The Disease a Younger Clinician May Never See

Jan 15

1 min read

There are diseases older pediatricians trained to recognize immediately that younger clinicians may go an entire career without seeing.

Hib is one of the best examples.

Before conjugate vaccines

Haemophilus influenzae type b was once the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children under five in the United States.

About 20,000 young children developed invasive Hib disease each year, and about 1,000 died.

Others survived with hearing loss, neurologic injury, or other permanent complications.

After Hib conjugate vaccines were introduced and routine infant vaccination began, invasive Hib disease in young children fell by more than 95%.

Today, fewer than 50 cases occur each year in young U.S. children, and many are in children who are not fully vaccinated.

When a disease disappears from the exam room, it also disappears from family memory.

That is wonderful—and it creates a paradox. The better a vaccine works, the harder it becomes to remember why we needed it.

— Nora Phillips, DNP, APRN Central Health | Wahiawa, Hawaii

CDC — Types of Hib Vaccines. https://www.cdc.gov/hi-disease/vaccines/types.html