The Economic Upside To Vaccinating

Sachiko Ozawa, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy who studies the effects of vaccinations on global health, projects that by 2020, Gavi — a global vaccine alliance started in 2000 that offers children the opportunity to get vaccines in third-world countries — will have prevented 20 million child deaths. It will have also saved $350 billion.

“Vaccination is generally regarded to be one of the most cost-effective interventions in public health,” Ozawa said.

To date, Gavi has immunized 580 million children in 73 countries. The value of preserved productivity, quality of life and other broad economic and social benefits for all 73 study countries is estimated to reach $820 billion by 2020, the researchers calculated.

Read the complete Carolina Story from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy…

The study, which was published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, was was performed with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Eshelman Institute for Innovation is made possible by a $100 million gift from Fred Eshelman to accelerate the creation and development of ideas leading to discoveries and transformative changes in education, research and health care. To learn more about the EII’s impact, visit unceii.org/impact.

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