STAT: Life-course vaccination can protect adults from infectious disease
Lois Privor-Dumm, director of policy, advocacy, and communications for the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

“…To prevent unnecessary deaths and improve public health, the U.S. and other countries need to take more seriously the concept of life-course vaccination, an approach to ensure that immunization programs are effectively implemented for people at all ages and stages of life. … Adopting adult immunization and life-course vaccination as a preventive measure must become a political priority and emerge front and center for global health policymakers who are now working on a new vision and strategy for vaccines and immunization for the decade ahead. Just as a global movement has led to global support and funding for childhood vaccination, a similar one is needed to create momentum for adult and life-course vaccination. Recognition of … demographic shifts and the importance of preventing infectious diseases in older adults is growing. … The WHO has declared 2021 to 2030 to be a decade of healthy aging. Getting serious about life-course vaccination in countries around the world will help make that a reality. And with a growing adult population in most parts of the world, it is a necessity” (4/16).