Vaccines can bolster health security and provide economic boost, conference told

International collaboration can lead to development of national health security plans that safeguard the future

Flu vaccination in Dubai. Prevention of disease should always be the starting point for global health security, experts say. Ahmed Ramzan for The National

Countries can reap enormous economic benefits by developing modern national health security programmes, focusing on preventive measures to prepare populations for future crises, the Dubai Healthcare Future Summit has been told.

At the first vaccination and infectious disease summit held on Tuesday, global experts warned against complacency after overcoming the global Covid-19 pandemic. Vaccinations and improving national health can relieve the burden on care systems, while nations should develop their own strategies to maintain public health when future global threats emerge, experts said.

Peter Pitts, a former member of the US senior executive service and ex-associate commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, said international collaboration could help improve health security at a local level. “For us to succeed, we have to work with countries with whom we are friendly and from whom we can learn and share,” he said.

“One of the lessons learnt from Covid-19, Smallpox, RSV and shingles is that certain populations are more prone to suffer severe consequences if they are not vaccinated. So it's not just the volume of product [vaccine] that exists in any given country, it's how that product is used.

“And there are tremendous learnings from our own American national experience, from the experience in the UAE, from the experience throughout the many countries of Europe and the rest of the Middle East and Africa. But we don't have a centralised brain trust thinking about these things so far.”

Global threats

In 2019, the World Health Organisation said vaccine hesitancy was among the top ten threats to global public health. Complacency, lack of confidence or inconvenient access were cited as key reasons for people going unprotected against preventable disease.

In the US, about 75 per cent of children have received recommended doses of DTaP, polio, MMR, Hib, Hepatitis B, varicella and PCV vaccines by the age of 35 months.

In 2023, 83 per cent of children worldwide received their first dose of the measles vaccine, well below the 86 per cent of children in 2019.

“The value of adding a national strategy isn’t about what we're going to do in the US, it’s how we're going to work with our partners globally,” said Mr Pitts, during a discussion on global health security at the Healthcare Future Summit. “This can be on a variety of different touch points that will allow us to advance US health literacy, to make our populations more compliant, to help prevent the next pandemic or to help ease it when it comes, because it most certainly is coming. And that's hard.”

Access to locally produced medication can significantly bolster national health security, as well as bring an economic boost.

Domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing is enjoying a growth spurt in the UAE, with more than 2,500 medicines made locally, and expected to top up the economy by $4.7 billion by 2025, according to Abu Dhabi investors ADQ.

While the UAE topped GCC nations in quality of healthcare in 2022 and has 23 domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing sites, a workforce shortage could expose vulnerabilities in health resilience and security, two key markers identified by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

A further regional challenge is providing digital health services in remote areas, where populations may have limited access to facilities and clinics.

Infections on the rise

Due to vaccine hesitancy, some countries have seen a return of viruses and disease once kept under control by rock-sold childhood immunisation programmes. Childhood infectious diseases such as whopping cough and measles have recently seen the biggest outbreaks for a generation around the world.

The UAE has launched its national measles campaign for all children aged one to seven, protecting them against measles, mumps and rubella.

In the UK, underinvestment into public health, falling vaccination rates, population growth and poor diets lacking in fresh fruit and vegetable have led to a rise in historic diseases like scabies and scurvy, according to the British Medical Journal.

Dr Adham Moneim, director of programme management at the regional office for the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, said prevention of disease should always be the starting point for global health security. “Since 2019 we have learnt that there's a direct linkage between health and economy, which we didn't want to touch before,” he said.

“Prevention as a starting point for vaccination is something that we recommend, but during Covid-19, not everyone had access to the vaccines that were developed and therefore we have to see a way that this never happens again. There are many issues, mostly related to the economy, research and development and money.

“If you look into those areas and start to see where the gaps are and prepare a good health security plan in the next 3 to 5 years, you will gain economically. You will gain health wise, improve prevention and make the vaccines that you need available in an equitable manner.”