Vaccines have saved at least 154 million human lives in the last 50 years, the equivalent of six people every minute, according to a WHO study published this Wednesday, April 24, by the scientific journal The Lancet.
The World Health Organization emphasizes, in a statement, that this estimate is “cautious” because the study only refers to vaccination against 14 diseases, including diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, whooping cough, tetanus or yellow fever.
“Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the statement.
“Thanks to vaccination, never before have so many children been able to survive and develop beyond the age of five,” commented the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, in the same press release.
101 million babies saved
WHO, UNICEF, vaccine alliance Gavi and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have launched the joint Humanly Possible campaign to support vaccination efforts.
These efforts sometimes clash with very strong anti-vaccine sentiments, fueled by conspiracy theories circulating on social media.
The study shows that the majority of lives saved thanks to vaccination, 101 million, are babies. Vaccination against the 14 diseases has directly contributed to reducing child mortality by 40% worldwide and by more than 50% in Africa.
“Thanks to vaccines, smallpox has been eradicated, polio is close to being eradicated, and with the more recent development of vaccines against diseases such as malaria and cervical cancer, we are pushing the frontiers of the disease,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom stressed. Ghebreyesus.
“Don’t take these advances for granted”
Among the vaccines examined in the study, the one intended to combat measles had the most significant impact, accounting for 60% of the lives saved. And thanks to polio vaccination, more than 20 million people who might have been paralyzed can now walk.
This progress highlights the importance of protecting vaccination progress in all countries around the world, says the WHO.
But “we cannot take these advances for granted” while “the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted routine vaccination programs around the world,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference.
“In many countries, the debt crisis is forcing governments to reduce funding for essential health programs. Climate change and conflict are making it difficult to deliver routine health services,” said Violaine Mitchell of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation via video conference. .
Concern about measles
The WHO calls for intensifying efforts to reach the 67 million children who have not received one or more vaccines during the pandemic. The UN agency is particularly concerned about measles.
Almost 94 million of the 154 million lives saved since 1974 have been thanks to vaccines against this disease, of which two doses are necessary. But 33 million children have yet to receive a dose of the measles vaccine in 2022.
Vaccination coverage of 95% or higher, with two doses of measles vaccine, is necessary to protect communities from outbreaks. Currently, this global rate for the first dose is 83% and for the second dose it is 74%, contributing to “a very high number of epidemics” around the world, according to the WHO.
“Misinformation about the measles vaccine certainly plays a role in people’s decision to get vaccinated or not. And we are really concerned about how this misinformation and anti-vaccine movements are growing in terms of our ability to communicate and spread information wrong,” the WHO said. Director of Immunization and Vaccines Dr. Kate O’Brien told reporters.
“But the main reason why children are not vaccinated against measles is related to the possibility of having access to vaccines, with the ability of programs to reach all parts of the world,” he stressed.
Source: BFM TV
