Unveiling the contributions of immunization for progressing towards Universal Health Coverage

ABSTRACT

The aim of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)3 is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages; including reducing maternal and child mortality, combating communicable and non-communicable diseases, and achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). UHC aims to provide everyone with equal access to quality essential and comprehensive healthcare services including preventions, interventions, and treatments, without exposing them to financial hardship. Making progress toward UHC requires significant investment in technical and financial resources and countries are pursuing the implementation of cost-saving measures within health systems to help them achieve UHC. Whilst many countries are far from attaining UHC, all countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries, can take steps toward achieving UHC. This paper discusses key data showing how immunization is a fundamental, cost-effective tool for reducing morbidity and mortality associated with infectious disease in all populations, creating more productive communities, reducing treatment costs, and consequently, facilitating social and economic advancement. Immunization is key to advancing toward UHC by relieving the burden that diseases place on the healthcare services, freeing essential resources to use elsewhere within the healthcare system. Immunization is an essential, readily available strategy that countries can deploy to achieve UHC and the SDG3 agenda.

KEYWORDS:

• Vaccination
• immunization
• Universal Health Coverage
• public health
• healthcare

Acknowledgments

Authors thank MediTech Media for editorial assistance and manuscript coordination, on behalf of GSK Vaccines. Dr Michael Patan provided medical writing support and Dr Danielle Lindley coordinated manuscript development and editorial support. All authors contributed equally to the development of this review and approved the final version; no author received funding for the development of this manuscript. The authors would also like to thank Professor Joseph Okeibunor and Dr Anil Dutta for their contribution to the development of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

JCdM and JMK declare no conflict of interest. IV, DC, MD, OC and MOCO are employed by, and have stock ownership in, the GSK Group of Companies.

Ethics statement

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Supplementry material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA funded the research and was involved in all stages of its conduct, including analysis and interpretation of the data. GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA also funded all costs associated with the development and publication of this manuscript.