ISGlobal Contributes to a Report that Proposes How to Implement a Life-Course Approach to Vaccination in Europe

Vaccination is one of the most powerful and cost-effective tools of public health and is critical to achieving 14 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  However, most countries have traditionally focused efforts on vaccinating children or the elderly. In addition, a number of factors including vaccine hesitancy are threatening their successful implementation in Europe.

In order to achieve the full potential of vaccination, adopting a life-course approach to vaccination (i.e. vaccinating an individual at key points of their entire life) is one way forward, according to a report recently delivered to the European Commission. The document was produced by the Health Policy Partnership and co-authored by Teresa Aguado (from ISGlobal) and other experts from key institutions or organisations.

The report discusses what a life-course approach to vaccination would look like and propose how to implement it in future vaccination policies in Europe. It also highlights the positive impact of adopting a life-course approach at different levels: individual (by boosting immunity and providing added protection if suffering from other diseases), community (by stopping the spread of infectious disease to vulnerable unvaccinated populations) and socioeconomic (by reducing hospitalization rates). They point out that this approach requires changes in five pillars: involve global EU and public health leaders, change the public’s perception of vaccination, engage healthcare professionals, integrate vaccination into non-healthcare settings such as schools or workplaces, and improve vaccine surveillance, data and research on the impact of life-course vaccination.

Some of the co-authors address an open letter to the EC Directorate for Health and Food Safety (DG-Santé). They applaud the EC’s proposal for a Council recommendation on strengthening European cooperation against vaccine-preventable diseases, but express their concern at the rise of some vaccine-preventable diseases (the number of new measles cases in Europe increased threefold between 2016 and 2017). They also point out that it costs less than €4,000 to protect someone against 17 different infectious diseases for their entire life, but less than 0.1% of health expenditure is spent on vaccination in OECD countries.

They remind the commissioners that vaccinating across the life course can bring enormous public health and socioeconomic benefits: reduce health expenditure, offer protection to people with pre-existing health conditions, reduce illness and death among those who cannot be vaccinated, and reduce the spread of infection and subsequent need for antibiotics, thereby curbing antimicrobial resistance. And they call on all stakeholders to come together to ensure vaccination achieves its potential for future generations.

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