WHO announces Top Ten Threats to Global Health in 2019

In its 2019 new year message, WHO has named vaccine hesitancy as one of the world’s top 10 global health threats, alongside air pollution and climate change, noncommunicable diseases, global influenza pandemic, fragile and vulnerable settings, antimicrobial resistance,  Ebola and other high-threat pathogens, weak primary health care, Dengue and HIV.

When you look at the list, vaccine hesitancy is directly related to most of them, with available vaccines for flu, Ebola (albeit still not registered), Dengue (with all its struggles), and HIV (in trials). The threats of fragile and vulnerable settings and weak primary health care both affect hesitancy given low confidence in the system or anxieties in conflict settings. And, as for antimicrobial resistance, we need vaccines more than ever as we are faced with antibiotics that no longer work.

While it is a stretch to relate vaccine hesitancy to air pollution and climate change, climate change will be changing disease vectors and vaccine needs, so vaccine confidence will again matter to mitigate hesitancy.