From the “Summary” of the position paper published by the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome, Italy.
“The purpose of this position paper is to provide lay persons with the foundations of vaccination, as well as to share some of the challenges of current research in immunology and vaccine research.
Owing to the concurrence of distinct factors, life expectancy in the richest countries has doubled over the past hundred years. Among the factors contributing to this major achievement, vaccines are a low-cost medical intervention allowing defeating diseases causing disastrous epidemics. According to World Health Organization estimates, vaccines save the world 5 lives every minute, i.e. 7,200 every day.
A key concept related to vaccines is sharing: for protection to be effective most of the population needs to be vaccinated. The fact that in the poorest nations not everyone has access to vaccines is a serious problem of global health and social inequality.”
http://www.lincei.it/files/documenti/doc_vaccines_EN_5dic2017.pdf
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