World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for a more aggressive approach to counteract anti-vaccine movements.
Tedros made this remark during a WHO celebration honoring so-called achievements in the 50 years since the organization launched the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI). During the celebration in Geneva, Switzerland, Tedros declared that “vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history.”
“Thanks to vaccines, the smallpox has been eradicated, polio is on the brink and many one-sphere diseases can now be easily prevented, including measles, cervical cancer, yellow fever, pneumonia and diarrhea. With the recent development of vaccines against diseases like malaria, millions more lives can be saved,” said Tedros.
“In 1974 fewer than five percent of infants globally were vaccinated. Millions died of diseases such as measles, polio and diphtheria. That was the year WHO launched the expanded program on immunization, or EPI as we all know. Today, about 84 percent of the world’s children have received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, and diseases which were once a death sentence: smallpox,” he continued.
“EPI supported countries to establish standardized vaccination programs [on] smallpox and six other diseases, diphtheria, measles, pertussis, polio, tetanus and tuberculosis. These programs do far more than ever imagined,” said Tedros. “Fifty years ago, the EPI program helped millions of children, adolescents and adults access vaccines against 30 diseases, [now,] a new study led by WHO estimates that the EPI has saved at least 154 million lives since 1974 an average of more than 8000 lives a day for the past 50 years. Thanks to immunization, a child born today is 40 percent more likely to see their first birthday than a child born 50 years ago.”
Hellbound and Down 