Vaccination

How it is used

Used for single doses and for whole programmes: routine childhood vaccination, a vaccination campaign. WHO documents often use 'immunization' in the same sense. People get vaccinated; health workers vaccinate people or give a vaccine.

Example sentences

1. Measles vaccination rates dropped in several districts last year.

2. The vaccination campaign targets all children under five.

Common collocations

• routine vaccination
• vaccination campaign
• vaccination programme
• get vaccinated
• mass vaccination

Related terms

• herd immunityIndirect protection that happens when enough people in a community are immune to an infection, so it cannot spread easily and even unprotected people are less likely to catch it.
• vaccination coverageThe percentage of people in a target group who have received a particular vaccine or all the required doses, such as children who had two doses of measles vaccine by age two.
• vaccine hesitancyA delay in accepting, or a refusal of, vaccines even when vaccination services are available, often driven by doubts, mistrust or misinformation.
• immunization scheduleThe official timetable that sets which vaccines people should receive, at what ages and in how many doses, in a particular country.
• booster doseAn extra dose of a vaccine given some time after the first doses to restore or strengthen protection that has faded over time.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• vaccination · Veterinary Medicine

More terms: Prevention and Vaccination

• primary prevention
• screening
• secondary prevention
• tertiary prevention
• cold chain
• eradication