This report of theOMS shows the need to accelerate the experimentation of new vaccines and to make maximum use of existing vaccines.
The silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance is a growing public health problem. The WHO calls it a “silent epidemic”.
Approximately five million deaths each year are associated with resistant bacterial infections, including 1.27 million deaths directly attributable to drug resistance.
Prevention of infections through vaccination reduces the use of antibiotics
This resistance does not only affect bacterial infections. It occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites evolve, ceasing to respond to drugs, and becoming difficult to treat.
Vaccines are effective tools for preventing infections, including those resistant to antimicrobials.
The WHO has identified sixty-one vaccines that are in various stages of development and clinical trials, but the report notes that most of them will not be available for some time.
“Preventing infections through vaccination reduces the need for antibiotics, which is one of the main factors causing AMR. Yet there is a vaccine against only one of the six resistant bacteria that cause the most deaths, the one responsible for pneumococcal disease (Streptococcus pneumoniae),” said Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance.
WHO for universal access to existing vaccines
Equitable access to affordable and life-saving vaccines, such as the pneumococcal vaccine, is urgently needed to save lives and limit antimicrobial resistance.
The WHO also calls for universal access to existing vaccines, especially among low-resource populations.
There are already vaccines against four priority bacteria: Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumoccocie), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib pneumonia), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis) and Salmonella Typhi (typhoid fever).
Current TB vaccines do not provide enough protection against the disease – and the development of more effective TB vaccines needs to be accelerated for the WHO – but the other three vaccines are effective and the agency recommends that more people benefit “if we want to reduce the use of antibiotics and avoid new deaths”.
Accelerate research
“Vaccine development is expensive and presents many scientific challenges. The failure rate is often high, and for candidate vaccines with successful results, complex regulatory and manufacturing requirements impose additional delays. Lessons learned from the development of COVID-19 vaccines must be taken advantage of and the search for vaccines against resistant infections must be accelerated,” said Dr Kate O’Brien, Director of WHO’s Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Commodities. biological.