Current Incident Status of Vaccine-Preventable Bacterial and Viral Infectious Diseases in Japan

摘要

An important step to evaluate infection control measures of a country is to understand its current disease epidemiology status. Accurate understanding of the current disease status allow us identify the area that needs to be improved, evaluate vaccine effectiveness, and reveal the needs to introduce new vaccines for public relief.This paper discusses the occurrence of vaccine-preventable bacterial and viral infectious diseases in Japan, referring to the surveillance results conducted by Infectious Disease Surveillance Center of National Institute of Infectious Diseases and other sources. The current surveillance data for the diseases under the routine vaccination program shows that measles and rubella are controlled well, while the tendency of increase in pertussis in young adults calls for the improvement of vaccination strategies. The data for the diseases under voluntary vaccination revealed a lack of preventive effect in the overall population as a result of low vaccination coverage.In order to rectify this situation, it is important to take measures such as revising the routine vaccination program to include currently voluntary vaccines, approving vaccines that have not been approved in Japan, and promoting the use of newly approved vaccines. It is also necessary to expand the response system including enriching the surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases.