Vaccination, Dec. 3 -- Dr. Anik Patel, a US-based pediatrician with Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) currently on assignment in West Africa, discusses below the importance of ensuring that children worldwide are vaccinated against deadly diseases like diphtheria, pertussis, and measles.

In humanitarian crises, health systems often collapse: Hospitals are damaged, clinics close, and families are displaced from the communities where they used to receive their medical care-leaving people who get sick with few options. In these settings, diseases that are normally preventable can spread rapidly and cause severe illness or death. Children are especially vulnerable.

For them, vaccines are one of the simplest and most eff...