‘Vaccines don’t save lives. Vaccination does’: Health experts shed light on global immunisation trends

With over one million children in Pakistan still missing routine vaccination, health experts recently gathered in Lahore for a week-long workshop focused on strengthening national immunisation efforts. The first day brought together leading experts who spoke on topics ranging from the history of vaccines and the science of how they work to global immunisation trends and coverage challenges. Speakers on the first day included Professor Asad Ali and Professor Farah Qamar from Aga Khan University. “What are the interventions modern medicine has done to save most lives? Antibiotics and vaccines,” said Professor Ali. Despite being a public health breakthrough, he noted, vaccines are costly to develop and produce because the safety threshold for administering them is set far higher than for most medicines, since they are typically given to healthy individuals.