A registered pharmacist technician fills the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine at a vaccine clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, 2020. (Credit: Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press files) <\/p>\n
Vaccines save millions of lives every year. So it\u2019s worrying that the U.S. government wants to cut funding for a key organization that enables immunization around the world.<\/p>\n
The COVID pandemic saw\u00a0growing rejection<\/a>\u00a0of vaccines, a shift that has contributed to the Trump administration\u2019s\u00a0announcement<\/a>\u00a0to cut its funding for Gavi, a global vaccine alliance. Gavi is\u00a0estimated to have saved the lives of 17 million children<\/a> over the past 25 years. It says<\/a> the loss of U.S. support would mean that over the next five years 75 million children will miss their routine vaccinations, and more than 1.2 million could die as a result.<\/p>\n Today most children dying from infectious diseases live in poorer countries. But that\u2019s new. Less than two centuries ago, even in rich countries pestilence was part of life. Infectious diseases caused almost half of annual\u00a0American<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0British<\/a> deaths \u2014 compared with only about three per cent of all American deaths today. In the world\u2019s poorer regions, however, infectious diseases still kill over three million children<\/a>\u00a0a year.<\/p>\n We need to bring everyone together on uncontroversial, lifesaving childhood vaccines like those for mumps and measles. Governments need to, not just maintain, but increase their spending. Doing so could drive huge advances in global development for a very small investment \u2014 a deal that should be attractive to everyone, regardless of their politics.<\/p>\n Vaccines are one of humanity\u2019s most amazing achievements. They have\u00a0saved more lives than any other medical invention<\/a>, enabling control of diseases that once caused untold misery. They completely erased one of humanity\u2019s most deadly diseases, smallpox, which killed indiscriminately for millennia. In the 20th\u00a0century alone, it likely killed 300-500 million people before being finally eradicated in 1977, thanks to a vaccine. If that vaccine didn\u2019t exist, smallpox might still be killing some five million people each and every year.<\/p>\n It is\u00a0estimated<\/a> that globally, immunization efforts have saved 154 million lives in the past half-century. That\u2019s one life every 10 seconds for 50 years. The vast majority, 101 million, were infants.<\/p>\n Saving lives is the biggest payoff to investing in vaccines, of course. But stopping diseases like polio, measles and tetanus also reduces pressure on health-care systems in poorer countries, making it possible for them to help heart and cancer patients better. And since infectious diseases don\u2019t recognize borders, there is less strain on health-care systems around the world, as well.<\/p>\n Story Continues <\/p>\n