Researchers estimate vaccines have saved 154 million lives over past half-century

An international team of health and medical researchers including workers at the WHO, working with economists and modeling specialists, has found that the use of vaccines to prevent or treat disease has saved the lives of approximately 154 million people over the past half-century.

In their study, published in The Lancet, the group used mathematical and statistical modeling to develop estimates for lives saved due to vaccines and then added them together to find the total.

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Blood Test Could Predict Long-Term COVID-19 Lung Problems New research alleviates concerns that severe COVID-19 could trigger relentless, ongoing lung scarring that could lead to death. Joshua Barney UVA Health Newsroom

UVA Health researchers have discovered a potential way to predict which patients with severe COVID-19 are likely to recover well and which are likely to suffer “long-haul” lung problems. That finding could help doctors better personalize treatments for individual patients.

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“Unless we develop comprehensive diagnostics and treatment for long COVID, we will never truly recover from the pandemic,” Kluge said, reiterating that older adults, people with underlying medical conditions and others with weakened immune systems should continue getting vaccinated.

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How small vaccine stockpiles can stop outbreaks of infectious disease from becoming big If we can’t get this right for known diseases like Marburg, what hope do we have for unknown pandemic threats? Torie Bosch STAT

...while fast-tracking candidate vaccines represents a positive step forward in the race to stop these outbreaks and to improve global health security, it raises an important question. If vaccine candidates already existed for both of these viruses before the outbreaks began, then why weren’t investigational stockpiles of vaccine ready to go when the first cases were detected?

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