Since the rotavirus vaccine was introduced in 2006, cases of kids going to the hospital with the illness have decreased.

Almost 65,000 fewer American children have been hospitalized and about $278 million in healthcare costs have been saved, according to new research, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),

The vaccine targets rotavirus, a common and easily transmitted pathogen. The new study found that there were 89 percent fewer rotavirus-specific hospitalizations in children who had gotten the vaccine compared to unvaccinated children.

“Diarrhea causes by rotavirus is one of the most common illnesses in children. It’s usually self-limited and treated at home, but before the vaccine was introduced, the virus was responsible for about 200,000 emergency room visits and 400,000 physician office visits a year,” stated the study’s senior author, Dr. Umesh Parashar, a medical epidemiologist and team leader of the viral gastroenteritis team at the CDC in Atlanta.

Before the routine inoculations, the virus was associated with 20 to 60 deaths a year in children under 5 in the United States.

“Globally, there are about a half a million deaths caused by this pathogen,” Parashar added.

Results of the study are published in the Sept. 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.