Chapter 20: National Surveillance of Vaccine-preventable Diseases

The national reporting system for infectious diseases in the United States was initially an archival system designed to document trends in disease occurrence rather than to provide epidemiologically important information needed for prevention and control of diseases. As national immunization programs developed, so did the need for surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases. The first major support for immunization at the federal level came following the licensure of inactivated poliomyelitis vaccine (IPV) in 1955. During the 2 weeks following the announcement of the results from the successful field trial of this polio vaccine, approximately 4 million dos es of vaccine were administered, mostly to elementary schoolchildren. On April 25, 1955, an infant with paralytic poliomyelitis was admitted to a Chicago hospital 9 days following vaccination with IPV. The next day, five additional cases of paralytic poliomyelitis were reported from California among children who had received vaccine produced by the same manufacturer of the vaccine administered in the child in Chicago. In each case, paralysis first developed in the limb in which vaccine had been given. On April 27, 1955, the Surgeon General asked the manufacturer to recall all remaining lots of vaccine. The following day, the Poliomyelitis Surveillance Unit was established at the Communicable Disease Center (now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]).