Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives in the last 50 years, the equivalent of six lives every minute, according to a recent WHO study published in the scientific journal The Lancet, reports AFP, quoted by Agerpres. The World Health Organization (WHO) points out in a statement that this estimate is “cautious” because the study only covers vaccination against 14 diseases, including diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, whooping cough, tetanus and yellow fever. “Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history, helping to prevent diseases that were once feared,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the same statement. “Thanks to vaccination, more children than ever have managed to survive and develop beyond the age of five than at any other time in history,” said the director-general of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, notes the source cited. WHO, UNICEF, vaccine alliance Gavi and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have organized the joint campaign “Humanly Possible” to support vaccination efforts. These efforts sometimes come up against very strong anti-vaccine opinions, fueled by conspiracy theories circulating on social networks. The study shows that the vast majority of lives saved by vaccines in the last 50 years – 101 million – are those of infants. Thus, vaccination against the 14 diseases directly contributed to reducing infant mortality by 40% worldwide and by more than 50% in the African region, according to the WHO.
“Thanks to vaccines, smallpox has been eradicated, poliomyelitis is on the verge of being eradicated, and with the recent development of vaccines against diseases such as malaria and cervical cancer, we are overcoming the limits of the disease,” the WHO director emphasized.
