I can still remember the feeling of sitting in the doctor’s waiting room before receiving a vaccination as a child. Cold sweats, tears running down my face, I couldn’t believe that my parents were subjecting me to such terror. 

And while injections can certainly be painful (and scary!), it’s easy to forget that that small prick in your arm is saving you from some of the most horrific and deadly diseases facing our world today. 

Below is a list of five things I certainly think are scarier than getting an injection, yet are entirely preventable thanks to the miracle of vaccinations. 

1. Being too scared to name your own child - Imagine being so scared of your child dying, that you refused to name him/her until you knew they were safe. While this may seem unimaginable, in countries where measles outbreaks are still a daily terror, this is the painful reality for many new mothers. Measles is a contagious, deadly virus, still killing an estimated 145,700 children per year. Most common in children under five, measles weakens the immune system and makes its victims susceptible to fatal complications such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition.

2. A lifetime of paralysis - Polio is one of the most dangerous diseases in our world today- it invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in a matter of hours. Spread through person-to-person contact, polio is most dangerous to children under five, especially those living in situations of poor hygiene and sanitation. There is no cure for polio, but there is an answer. If enough children are fully immunised against the disease, the virus dies out, unable to find children to infect. Over 10 million children are walking, running and playing today who would otherwise have been paralysed, and eradicating polio is a real possibility as long as children continue to be immunised against this infection. 

3. The ‘silent killer’ - Named the silent killer because many newborns and mothers affected die at home, with neither the birth nor the death being reported, tetanus is a painful, preventable and fatal disease. Tetanus is most dangerous to unvaccinated pregnant women and mothers who must deliver and care for their newborns in unhygienic conditions. And an estimated 58,000 mothers and newborns die unnecessarily each year from this disease. However, thanks to immunisation and improved medical care, 35 of 59 high-priority countries have eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus. And continuing the fight against could mean eradicating the disease completely.

4. Fearing for the life of your unborn child - Half of all children worldwide still do not receive the rubella vaccine, partly due to the fact that the disease is generally very mild in children. But the rubella infection in women during early pregnancy can have extremely serious effects on her foetus. If infected with rubella in the first trimester, women have a high risk of giving birth to a child with Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS), leading to lifelong complications and disabilities. And while this disease can lead to immeasurable emotional, physical and financial costs for families of those born with CRS, like measles, rubella is entirely preventable with just one injection. 

5. Being the one in five - While all the disease mentioned above kill hundreds of thousands of children each year, these deaths are all entirely preventable. One in five children still misses out on the basic package of vaccines, meaning over 20 million infants are not given the protection they need to stay alive. And while vaccines currently save the lives of 3 million children every year, the injustice of even one child being infected by a preventable disease is a tragedy that we can fight to solve. 

While this list may seem overwhelmingly terrifying, all these monsters are ones that we have the power to fight. This week is World Immunisation Week, raising awareness for the one in five children in the world who still don’t receive immunisation. WHO is fighting to Close the Immunization Gap and create a world where everyone lives free from vaccine preventable diseases by 2020, and you can find out more about how countries are closing the gap here. 

You can also take action now by signing the petition to demand that all children have access to life saving vaccines.