Vaccines — A Powerful Tool We Must Treat With Care

Every year, immunisation saves over 2.5 million livesVaccines have transformed our lives. They have made it possible for us to control and prevent many diseases. Every year, immunisation saves over 2.5 million lives. Incredible progress has been made, but there is still more to be done: developing new vaccines, optimising or using existing vaccines in new ways, and ensuring that adequate levels of immunisation are maintained to guarantee the continuous protection of the population. This last aspect is one that is too often forgotten.

As we start to control an infectious disease more efficiently and its incidence declines, people tend to forget the effort it took to achieve this situationTalking about the need to maintain overall levels of protection, we note that people’s perception of the need for vaccination varies across different sectors of the population. When an epidemic breaks out, the world clamours for products to combat, control and prevent the disease, without regard for the fact that, under normal conditions, the development of a new vaccine requires an enormous scientific, financial and logistical effort from both the public and private sectors. However, as we start to control an infectious disease more efficiently and its incidence declines, people tend to forget the effort it took to achieve this situation and overlook the fact that the danger can re-emerge. After all, why worry so much about something that appears to no longer affect us? It is also at this stage that groups tend to appear which, more or less actively, promote the rejection of vaccination.

Advances can often end up being the victims of their own success. Like any other drug or biologic product, vaccines are not perfect and can have minor side effects which, although accepted as safe by the health authorities, become less acceptable to the population when the disease starts to disappear and people feel more secure. Moreover, adverse reactions are sometimes attributed to a vaccine despite a complete lack of evidence for the association, a phenomenon that can result in a setback in the fight against the disease targeted by the vaccine in question. If a section of the population stops being vaccinated against a disease, it is very likely that the disease will reappear even after it is believed to be under control. A disease can also be reintroduced into countries or regions where it had previously been eliminated.

If a section of the population stops being vaccinated against a disease, it is very likely that the disease will reappear One example is the resurgence in recent years of outbreaks of measles in several industrialized countries. If we analyse the cases of measles in the USA outbreaks, we see that most of them affected people who had never been vaccinated. Although the disease is well controlled globally, measles still occurs in parts of the world where vaccination coverage is deficient, such as certain countries in Africa and Asia. Therefore, people travelling from these countries can reintroduce the disease into communities where some population groups have not been vaccinated. According to the USA Department of Health, many of the cases that occurred in the country in 2014 were imported from the Philippines while in 2011 most of the cases came from France, where a major outbreak had occurred.

Vaccines are one of the most powerful weapons we have to fight infection. However, it is important to remember that their value and impact depend on their proper and continuous administration where needed. Neither should we forget, however, that people not only deserve to have vaccines but also deserve transparent, accurate and complete information so that they can use them to best effect.