What are the Five Common Childhood Diseases?

As a child, I had chicken pox. A few years later, at summer camp, I contracted mumps. Add to those the temporary insanity of my teenage years and the scorching pain during my first period, and at the ripe old age of 18 you could say I’ve experienced my fair share of health issues. All of which raises an important question: What are the five common childhood diseases?

Five Common Childhood Diseases

There are five major diseases that children can get. If a child gets one of these, they’d be in the hospital for a while if they’re lucky. This is a little info-graphic showing 5 common childhood diseases.

The five most common childhood diseases are:

1. Tetanus (lockjaw) – caused by a bacterial infection that enters through an open wound or cut, and causes painful tightening of the muscles in the jaw and neck. The disease is spread by soil and animal faeces.

2. Polio – is caused by a virus that attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis and death if left untreated. It’s spread through contaminated food and water.

3. Measles – a highly contagious viral disease that can cause pneumonia and blindness, as well as ear infections and diarrhoea in infants. It spreads through coughing or sneezing, touching infected surfaces or breathing the same air as an infected person.

4. Chickenpox – is caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), which spreads easily via coughing, sneezing or touching objects with VZV on them like towels or clothing items used by someone who has chickenpox lesions on their skin surface areas.

5. Whooping Cough – This bacterial infection causes violent coughing spells that last for weeks at a time—it can even lead to pneumonia or death!

The good news is that these diseases are easily preventable with vaccination. The bad news is that most of us don’t have a perfect memory of what we were like when we were kids. And if you’re not sure whether or not your kids have been vaccinated against these diseases, you might want to double-check their records!

These five childhood diseases can cause serious complications in adults as well as children. That’s why it’s important to make sure everyone in your family has been vaccinated against them. The MMR vaccine protects against measles, mumps and rubella; the DTaP vaccine protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; and the varicella vaccine protects against chicken pox (also called varicella).