.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organisation (WHO) logo is seen near its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, February 2, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS <\/p>\n
GENEVA: <\/p>\n
Vaccine programmes are being challenged by rising misinformation and an uncertain pipeline for research funding, the World Health Organization’s immunisation experts said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
And the war in the Middle East will likely hamper the fight against polio, the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (SAGE) said.<\/p>\n
The group held its biannual meeting last week, focusing on Covid-19 jab recommendations, typhoid vaccine dosing schedules and oral polio vaccine doses in routine immunisation.<\/p>\n
“Emerging challenges for the future include uncertain funding for vaccine research and development, and misinformation and distorted information that erodes public trust in vaccines,” said SAGE.<\/p>\n
“Protecting trust and countering misinformation will be a central focus in 2026.”<\/p>\n
WHO vaccines chief Kate O’Brien said resources would be targeted this year on protecting the roll-out of core immunisation programmes.<\/p>\n
“We’re in a really deeply changing world for infectious diseases and for vaccine programmes,” she said, due to conflicts, economic challenges and health budgets being cut.<\/p>\n
Trust in vaccines is being “threatened by misinformation”, she told a press conference.<\/p>\n
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the US health chief, has long voiced anti-vaccine rhetoric and inaccurate claims connecting vaccines and autism.<\/p>\n
A WHO review of all available evidence issued in December reaffirmed there is no link between vaccines and autism \u2014\u00a0contrary to the theories being propagated in the United States and beyond.<\/p>\n
“Vaccines do not cause autism and they never have caused autism,” stressed O’Brien.<\/p>\n
She said vaccines had saved 154 million lives over the past 50 years, and more than 30 diseases could be prevented through immunisation.<\/p>\n
“The risk is about backsliding, or even countries deciding that they can’t afford all of the vaccines that are in their programme,” she said.<\/p>\n
The group voiced concern over the ongoing transmission of wild poliovirus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the persistent detection of vaccine-derived type-2 poliovirus in several African countries, a strain related to the weakened live poliovirus contained in oral polio vaccines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":". The World Health Organisation (WHO) logo is seen near its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, February 2, 2023.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[65,832,4293],"class_list":{"0":"post-34827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-geneva","8":"tag-geneva","9":"tag-latest","10":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116254039414706194","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}