Dear colleagues and friends,
Good afternoon, it’s a pleasure to join you.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a vivid reminder – if any were needed – of the incredible life-saving power of vaccines.
And yet the paradox of the pandemic is that COVID-19 has caused severe disruption to many essential health services, including routine vaccination.
25 million children missed out on routine vaccinations last year. As a result, we are now seeing more and more large and disruptive outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles around the world.
One of WHO’s key areas of work now is to support countries to restore those services and get back on track to achieve the goals of Immunization Agenda 2030 – the strategy adopted by the World Health Assembly last year.
If fully implemented, Immunization Agenda 2030 could avert over 50 million deaths over the next decade – 75 percent of them in low- and lower-middle income countries – and drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, especially the targets for infant and newborn mortality.
Thanks in large part to vaccines, the infant mortality rate has more than halved globally since 1990.
However, newborn mortality has not kept pace. In 2020, 2.4 million children died in the first month of life – almost half of all child deaths.
Ensuring access to the safe and effective vaccines we have is absolutely critical.
The WHO Vaccine Market Report, published today, shows that lack of transparency on pricing and production capacity, unpredictable demand and affordability, and the concentration of manufacturing in too few countries and companies, are all major barriers to access, especially for low- and middle-income countries.
For example, the combination vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella is used by at least 100 countries, but is highly dependent on just two manufacturers.
Meanwhile, there are no vaccines for many of the diseases that hit low-income countries hardest – like schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis – because there is no profit to be made.
So it’s clear that to make progress on infant and newborn mortality, we need to ensure all children have access to the vaccines we have.
It’s also clear that we will need new and better vaccines for diseases against which there are none, or that offer limited protection.
But we also need to examine how we can use the tried and tested tools we have in new ways, including for their “off target” effects.
For example, the BCG vaccine offers modest protection against tuberculosis, but evidence is accruing to clarify and quantify its impact on neonatal mortality.
For many years, WHO has recommended – and continues to recommend – the use of BCG vaccine at birth. Greater implementation of that recommendation in countries is essential to fully realise its benefits.
There is also a rich area of research to better understand the impact of BCG on all-cause mortality, other infectious diseases, and noncommunicable diseases including diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
Likewise, oral polio vaccine not only prevents childhood paralysis, but is also being studied for its broader survival benefits beyond polio.
Of course, there are still unanswered questions and areas in which more evidence is needed.
WHO is committed to the highest standards in research, policy and implementation – because that’s what the people we serve deserve.
This conference is an important opportunity to share recent findings and debate their implications, for vaccine development, the best use of existing products, and high-priority research.
Thank you all for your continued efforts to optimize the life-saving power of vaccines.
I thank you.