The Guardian: More people in less space: rapid urbanization threatens global health
Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

“…The combination of more people living in less space and placing more strain on already limited sanitation represents a fertile breeding ground for infectious disease and the insect vectors spreading them. At the same time, the sheer scale of cities has the potential to overstretch vaccine supplies, limiting our ability to prevent or respond to outbreaks. … The best way to avoid outbreaks is to close the gaps through which infection can spread. That means improving routine immunization coverage and highlighting urban blind spots. At the same time, we need to review regularly our risk assessment for infectious disease to ensure that we have enough doses of vaccine to cope with worst-case scenarios. We also need to make sure that those scenarios accurately reflect how diseases scale. … With infectious disease, without vaccines there’s no safety in numbers” (6/28).