Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years, equivalent to six lives every minute, according to a World Health Organization study published today in the scientific journal The Lancet.
The WHO underlines, in a statement, that this assessment is “reserved” as the study only concerns vaccination against 14 diseases, including diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, whooping cough, tetanus, yellow fever.
“Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history, enabling the prevention of diseases that were once feared,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Thanks to vaccination, never before have so many children been able to survive and develop beyond their fifth birthday than at any other time in history,” also commented the director general of the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) Catherine Roussel, according to the same announcement.
WHO, Unicef, the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have launched the joint “Humanely Possible” campaign to support vaccination efforts. Efforts that sometimes come up against very strong anti-vaccination sentiments fueled by conspiracy theories circulating on social media.
The study shows that the vast majority of lives saved by vaccines over the past 50 years, 101 million, are those of infants.
Therefore, vaccination against the 14 diseases has contributed significantly to reducing child mortality by 40% in the world, and by more than 50% in the African region, according to the WHO.
“Thanks to vaccines, smallpox has been eradicated, polio is about to be defeated, and thanks to the recent development of vaccines against diseases such as malaria and cervical cancer, we are pushing the boundaries of disease,” Dr. Tedros emphasized.
“By continuing research, investment and collaboration, we continue to save millions more lives today and in the next 50 years,” he also said.
Among the vaccines included in the study, measles vaccination had the greatest impact on reducing child mortality, accounting for 60% of lives saved.
According to the WHO, this vaccine “will likely remain in the future the one that contributes most to the prevention of deaths.”
Thanks to polio vaccination, more than 20 million people who would otherwise have been paralyzed can walk, the WHO also points out.
Overall, the progress achieved in child survival thanks to vaccines underscores the importance of continuing these efforts, according to the UN agency.
The World Health Organization is mainly calling for accelerated efforts to reach the 67 million children who did not receive one or more vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, when health services were closed or largely disrupted.
WHO expresses strong concern about measles.
Almost 94 million of the 154 million lives saved since 1974 have been saved by the measles vaccine, of which two doses are necessary.
But 33 million children missed a dose of measles vaccine in 2022: nearly 22 million missed their first dose and another 11 million missed their second dose.
Coverage of 95% or more with 2 doses of the vaccine is essential to protect communities against epidemics.
Currently the rate of global coverage of the first dose of measles vaccine is 83% and that of the second dose is 74%, contributing to “a very high number of measles outbreaks” on a global scale, the WHO states with concern.
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