CONTENT: THE VALUE OF VACCINES

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THE VALUE OF VACCINES
Health, wealth and happiness…
…for every generation
Vaccines are one of humanity’s greatest achievements. For centuries they have liberated us from disease, death and poverty – safeguarding our present and building our future.
Effective vaccination is recognized worldwide as one of humanity’s most successful and cost-effective health interventions, an essential foundation for successful human development. Vaccination is an integral part of the WHO’s mission to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). 1
The scale of lives saved, and societies built, thanks to immunization overshadows many other interventions – with children, babies and the earth’s most vulnerable benefitting profoundly. Increasingly, vaccines are also protecting health beyond infancy – in adolescence, adulthood, during pregnancy, and in older age groups. Vaccination against infectious diseases has changed our world, saving millions of lives every year, both children and adults, and providing major benefits to society as a whole.
Vaccines and sustainability
CALCULATING THE VALUE OF VACCINATION
Vaccination doesn’t only prevent disease. It drives sustainable human development.
Worldwide, societies with sustainable populations share three key factors:
- comprehensive vaccination programs
- equal educational opportunities for girls as well as boys
- access to reproductive healthcare and birth control.
SUSTAINABLE POPULATIONS
Three key factors
That’s why vaccine access is central to so many of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with poor coverage singled out as a serious obstacle to sustainable development.
UNITED NATIONS:
Spotlighting poor vaccine coverage
UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL #3
“Coverage of DTP vaccine has remained unchanged between 2015 and 2017
“Global coverage of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine has yet to reach 50 percent.
“Global coverage for the second dose of the measles vaccine is still insufficient to prevent this highly contagious disease.
With vaccines so central to achieving sustainable development, yet vaccine coverage recognized as a serious obstacle, it’s time to explore new innovation in vaccine formulation as a key route towards increasing vaccine coverage—and sustainable growth.
1 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld