Turning Discovery Into Health
Learn More About Infectious Diseases
Infectious diseases account for about 1 in 4 deaths worldwide, including approximately two-thirds of all deaths among children younger than age 5. For more than 60 years, NIH has worked to combat infectious diseases by helping to develop new therapies, vaccines, diagnostic tests, and other technologies.
Vaccines can now protect children against once-common infections, including chicken pox, measles, mumps and pneumococcal pneumonia. In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first vaccine against a cancer-causing virus. Developed after nearly 2 decades of NIH-funded research, the vaccine helps to prevent cervical cancer, which today claims the lives of nearly 4,000 women each year in the United States.
Beyond vaccines, basic research has led to a deeper understanding of how infectious diseases pass from one person to another, how to prevent this transmission, and how to better treat or cure these diseases. Here are just a few areas where NIH-funded investigations are having a significant impact: