Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives in the last 50 years

Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives in the last 50 years, the equivalent of six lives every minute, according to a WHO study published in the scientific journal The Lancet, reports AFP.

The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasizes, 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, it also writes Agerpres.

“Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history, helping to prevent diseases that were once feared,” said the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the same statement.

“Thanks to vaccination, more children than ever have managed to survive and develop after 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 quoted.

WHO, UNICEF, the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation organized the joint campaign “Humanly Possible”, which aims to support vaccination efforts.

These efforts sometimes collide with very strong anti-vaccination 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 over 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 also emphasized, according to the cited sources.

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