i was born in uganda in 1950 and a year and a half later i slipped out of bed one day and i collapsed on the floor my parents immediately thought oh that's polio it would be hard to imagine what a world without vaccines would be like it would really be quite horrible there would be outbreaks of disease regularly all over the world i don't even think i'll be here in a world without a resource vaccine the true deep impact and the global impact of vaccines just can't be overestimated [Music] my grandmother she used to tell
a story about when they would hear the bells on a hearse going down the high street a funeral she said as children they would rush to their nursery window to see if there were white ribbons on the horses which meant it was a child funeral and they happened several times a week [Music] it typically affected children one of the names for polio was infantile [Music] paralysis [Music] it's quite difficult to imagine a world without vaccines life expectancy would be a lot lower people would have to lock themselves away and only come out again when it
was safe and ironically there would be such a demand to do something that vaccines would inevitably emerge vaccines are likely the most important public health intervention of the last 100 years they've saved over a billion lives [Music] with the rule out of vaccines we have seen a massive reduction in child mortality in sub-saharan africa i am born in the gambia and growing up there i lost a brother to missiles to lose somebody at a very premature age from a disease preventable by vaccines is absolutely devastating vaccines can prevent cancer and there are two kinds of
vaccines [Music] with rollout of the current malaria vaccine we are expecting to see a reduction of 40 of malaria deaths [Music] you could bring a vaccine to people but will they take it anti-vaccination fears have been around for over a century we know from the 1850s when jenner first developed smallpox vaccine there were actually quite a few protests a lot of it was about civil rights and libertarian values there were arguments saying that it was poisonous that children who received a smallpox vaccine would develop bovine or cow-like traits a lot of it was just a
genuine knowledge void that a lot of people had in the 1850s that they still have today so on the one hand we have the really hardcore adamant anti-vaccination groups but a lot of people are actually in the middle and i think what we need to do is just engage with people where they are and where they're talking and not discount their real concerns people you know want to understand things they want to be confident they might be afraid of needles we have to understand their context and where they're coming from and what are their past
experiences with health and vaccines we have to ensure that people understand it and they'll take it having vaccines that people are not taking will not serve any good it's vaccinates on that protects not vaccines in a world without vaccine will be a matter of economic status where the children of the wealthy who have access to health care will be surviving vaccines are the only public health intervention that can bring equality so women don't need to have five ten children just to see three of them grow to all age this isn't about just individual rights when
you take a vaccine it's protecting yourself it's protecting your family and it's protecting your community it's not just a personal choice it's a moral choice as well that affects other people it's impossible to emphasize how important vaccines are and the reason that we don't often realize that they're important is that we've eradicated many of these diseases the idea that vaccines could be a victim of their own success it's about taking things for granted isn't it and not looking behind what the privileges we have in the modern world are and what makes it the modern world
and makes it a safe place for most of us to be and vaccines are absolutely at the heart of that they're fundamental [Music]
