Saleh Hayyan, a health worker from Yemen, vaccinated a little boy during a community outreach event organized by UNICEF

The latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO) released on Thursday indicates that through vaccination against 24 pathogens, global antibiotic use could potentially be reduced by 22% each year, equivalent to saving 2.5 billion antibiotic doses. This is crucial for the global response to antimicrobial resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites lose effectiveness against antimicrobial drugs, which not only worsens patients' conditions and increases mortality risk but also spreads hard-to-treat infections. The roots of this issue lie in the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial drugs. However, a significant portion of the global population still lacks access to necessary therapeutic drugs. It is estimated that up to 5 million deaths annually are attributable to antimicrobial resistance.

Vaccines are viewed as powerful tools to combat antimicrobial resistance, as they can prevent infections, reducing the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial drugs, thereby slowing the emergence and spread of resistant pathogens.

The report highlights that existing vaccines against pathogens like pneumococcus, Haemophilus influenzae type b, and typhoid could prevent approximately 106,000 deaths annually related to antimicrobial resistance. If new vaccines for tuberculosis and Klebsiella pneumoniae are successfully developed and promoted globally, it is projected that 543,000 deaths related to antimicrobial resistance could be avoided each year. While new tuberculosis vaccines are currently undergoing clinical trials, the development of a Klebsiella pneumoniae vaccine is still in its early stages.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out that preventing infections is paramount in addressing antimicrobial resistance, and vaccines are a powerful weapon to achieve this goal. Prevention is better than treatment; increasing the accessibility of existing vaccines and accelerating the development of new vaccines for major diseases like tuberculosis is critical for saving lives and reversing the situation regarding antimicrobial resistance.

Vaccines Are Key to Infection Prevention

The report shows that if 90% of children and the elderly worldwide were vaccinated with the pneumococcal vaccine, it would save 33 million antibiotic doses; accelerating the promotion of the typhoid vaccine in high-risk countries could save 45 million doses; and the malaria vaccine (against Plasmodium falciparum) has the potential to save up to 25 million antibiotic doses, which are often incorrectly used to treat malaria. Moreover, once the tuberculosis vaccine is developed, it is estimated that between 1.2 billion and 1.9 billion antibiotic doses could be saved each year, accounting for nearly 20% of the total antibiotic use estimated in the report.

Vaccines Can Significantly Reduce Economic Costs

Globally, hospital costs for treating resistant pathogens reach up to $730 billion annually. If vaccines were developed for all evaluated pathogens, it could save one-third of the related hospital costs.

The report calls for health systems to adopt a comprehensive, people-centered approach to prevent, diagnose, and treat infections. Vaccination is considered a core component of preventing antimicrobial resistance, particularly when combined with other intervention measures.

At the high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance held during the 79th United Nations General Assembly on September 26, world leaders adopted a political declaration committing to establish a series of clear targets and actions, including a 10% reduction in deaths related to bacterial antimicrobial resistance, which affects approximately 4.95 million people, by 2030. The declaration emphasizes the importance of access to vaccines, drugs, treatments, and diagnostics while calling for incentives and financing mechanisms to promote cross-sectoral health research, innovation, and development to jointly address antimicrobial resistance.