Once-Eliminated Childhood Disease Returns as Vaccination Rates Plummet

A Deadly Disease Thought Vanquished Makes a Comeback

Eight-year-old Liam Dahlberg came home from school with a simple headache in April. Within three days, the bacterial infection had invaded his brain, causing irreversible swelling that forced his family to make the heartbreaking decision to remove him from life support. Liam had contracted Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), a disease that once killed 1,000 children annually before vaccines nearly eliminated it in the 1990s.

Hib is a deadly bacterial infection that causes meningitis, and doctors are warning it's making a comeback as vaccination rates decline. Dr. Kathryn Edwards at Vanderbilt University Medical Center said her colleagues recently treated two cases of Hib-related meningitis after not seeing such cases for "a number of years." In Panama City, Florida, a local hospital treated two unvaccinated children with Hib in December - a 2-year-old and a 4-month-old who died.

Before vaccines became available, about 20,000 children in the United States developed severe Hib infections annually, with roughly 1,000 deaths each year. After vaccinations began, cases dropped to fewer than 50 annually. Many doctors who've trained in the past 40 years have never seen a case.

Declining Protection Leaves Children Vulnerable

The CDC reported that the percentage of babies receiving the full series of Hib shots fell from 78.8% in 2019 to 77.6% in 2021. More recent data shows Hib vaccination rates declined from 84.8% in children born in 2011 to 80.3% in those born in 2021, representing the most significant decline among childhood vaccines.

A 2025 NBC News investigation found that childhood vaccination rates overall have fallen in at least 77% of U.S. counties since 2019. Vaccination rates need to remain above approximately 90% in infants and toddlers to maintain community benefits and prevent disease spread. Even people who aren't sick can spread Hib through coughs and sneezes, and the bacteria can cause serious infections in the lungs, bloodstream, and joints.

Liam Dahlberg had been vaccinated, but his immune system was compromised by inhaled steroids for asthma treatment. His mother now advocates for vaccination to protect vulnerable children like her son who depend on community immunity.

Medical Practice Changes as Forgotten Disease Returns

Doctors say the rise in Hib cases is changing how they practice medicine. Clinicians must now consider Hib as a potential cause of illness in unvaccinated children, requiring broader antibiotics since many Hib strains don't respond to standard treatments like amoxicillin.

Dr. Paul Offit, who trained in the late 1970s, recalls performing "two to three spinal taps a night" to diagnose Hib meningitis when it was a leading cause of bacterial meningitis in children under five. Even with antibiotic treatment, 3-6% of children with Hib disease die, and up to 30% of survivors suffer permanent neurological damage including hearing loss.

As one Florida pediatrician noted after treating recent cases: "I'd never seen a case of Hib for years and years. Now I'm hearing about it." The resurgence forces healthcare providers to maintain heightened awareness for a disease many thought relegated to medical textbooks, fundamentally altering clinical decision-making in an era when vaccine-preventable diseases are staging troubling comebacks.