– It is always very chaotic when you get to the start of an outbreak, says doctor Mads Geisler. Six years ago, he went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, when the authorities sounded the alarm: there was an outbreak of Ebola in the West African country. It is a very dangerous disease and it kills 50 percent of those infected. It therefore requires rapid efforts to identify and treat those who have been infected. It was important to avoid the outbreak becoming larger and spreading to the million-strong city of Mbandaka, where one infected person had been registered, or to neighboring countries. – There is a panic-like atmosphere, people are afraid. We will quickly isolate and examine those with symptoms to find out if they are infected, so we can start treatment. We will also track down those they have been in contact with, says Geisler, who was sent by Doctors Without Borders to the village of Itipo south of Mbandaka to stop the Ebola infection there. There is a lot to be arranged. Isolation rooms must be found for the infected. The local health staff must be trained in the safety routines around Ebola treatment with distance, hand washing and so on. Both cleaning staff, kitchen staff and porters must learn strict hygiene rules to ensure against infection. The local population must be informed about the disease, risk of infection and treatment options. At the same time, the logistics must be in place. But one thing was different compared to the other two Ebola outbreaks Mads Geisler had been sent to before: This time there was a vaccine. – Compared to the large Ebola outbreak in West Africa four years before, the outbreak in 2018 was something completely different, says Geisler. We could vaccinate both healthcare personnel and two contact points around the infected, with a vaccine that is perhaps 100 per cent effective, Geisler continues. – It was fantastic to see the vaccination campaign being rolled out, he says. A life every ten seconds The Ebola vaccine is just one of many effective and important vaccines that have been rolled out around the world over the past half century. Last year it was 50 years since the World Health Organization, WHO, created a new vaccine strategy that put vaccines at the center of global health efforts. It has revolutionized public health worldwide. On the occasion of the anniversary, experts from the WHO have calculated how many lives the global vaccination effort has saved. It’s an absolutely enormous number, it’s so big it’s almost hard to fathom: 154 million deaths have been averted because of vaccines since 1974. That’s the equivalent of a life saved every 10 seconds for 50 years. It only includes the 13 vaccines that are part of the WHO’s so-called “expanded vaccination programme”, Expanded Program of Immunization, or EPI. There are vaccines against diseases that take many lives, such as measles, diphtheria, hepatitis B and now also corona – and therefore do not count with the effects of other vaccines, such as the new Ebola vaccines. This means that the figure for all vaccines is even higher than 154 million. In addition, there are the many millions of people who have avoided difficult illness or disability. For example, the rollout of the vaccine against polio has not only saved 1.5 million children’s lives since 1988, but has also prevented paralysis in 20 million people, who would otherwise not be able to walk today. – There is no doubt that vaccines are the most effective tool we have to improve public health, says Bjørn Melgaard, who is a retired doctor with decades of experience in developing countries and former director of WHO’s vaccination programme. – Without comparison. Stik i system Bjørn Melgaard explains that it has required enormous work to build up the global vaccination effort.
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The global vaccine effort has saved over a hundred million human lives in 50 years
