Opinion: I’m a vaccine scientist. The devastating impacts of vaccine hesitancy have touched my life too

Opinion by Mohamed Bassyouni

(CNN) — As a parent and a researcher focusing on vaccines, I always made sure, along with my wife, that our children received all the shots our doctor recommended. But when my eldest son was a young child, there was no vaccine for rotavirus. He contracted a severe rotavirus infection, developed dehydration along with other life-threatening symptoms, and had to be hospitalized for an entire week. We were grateful that he survived.

It just so happened that my research back then supported clinical trials evaluating a vaccine candidate for rotavirus. This work was successful and the vaccines were found to be effective. I felt gratitude once again — this time for the lives that would be spared and for the many millions of children who would not suffer the kind of debilitating illness that my own child had endured.

In Saudi Arabia, where we were living at the time, my two younger children received their rotavirus shots as their doctors recommended. Indeed, many countries in the Middle East approved the vaccine. And researchers at the National Institutes of Health in the US determined that the vaccine also “substantially reduced hospitalization and deaths in Africa.”

The expectation was that many lives would be saved around the globe thanks to the rotavirus vaccine. And indeed, lives were saved — when it was administered.

I have a rare perspective: Both personally and professionally, I have seen the impact of serious diseases and the promise of new vaccines as they are being developed. Sadly, I also have seen how these tools are not universally embraced. I and my colleagues didn’t count on what has come to be known as vaccine hesitancy. Not all of my children’s classmates received the rotavirus shot and we saw them get sick — sometimes, gravely. In many cases, their parents simply didn’t see the value of the vaccines.

Reticence against vaccinations — a growing phenomenon in the United States — is now a visible and growing global phenomenon. In my experience, many African parents have turned down vaccines even when they have access to them. But by choosing against immunization, they run the risk that they or their loved ones could contract vaccine-preventable diseases, the consequences of which can be quite serious.

Even for illnesses that science has largely conquered, the quest to develop improved vaccines is never-ending. My current research supports the clinical trials evaluating a vaccine candidate for tuberculosis (TB), a disease that kills more than a million people every year. This could be the first new TB vaccine in 100 years. The current vaccine, BCG, is one of the first that babies receive but it works well only in children. It does not cover adults and adolescents, the intended target for the vaccine candidate I work on.

Again, I saw the pernicious effects of this preventable disease in my own family. My brother-in-law had a drug-resistant TB infection in his 20s. He had been healthy and athletic, but the infection and its treatment were so harsh they took a terrible toll on him.

The pills left him dizzy and robbed him of his strength. After two years, he was finally cured, but he lost 20 kg (44 pounds) in the process. It took him another year and a half to recover. He has fully recovered now, but I wish he had been able to enjoy healthier years during his youth.

Now, across the globe, we’re seeing an alarming surge in measles, an illness we thought we had under control.

Last year saw almost twice as many measles infections as the year before and 2024 is already on pace to eclipse that number. More than 50 countries have reported major outbreaks, despite vaccines that work and widespread efforts to make sure all children are immunized. These numbers are particularly worrying as students prepare to return to classrooms where they will be in close quarters with other children, many of whom will be unvaccinated.

The number of children who fail to receive their full complement of shots peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic but has declined since, from 18.1 million children in 2021 to almost 13 million in 2023. But that number is still far too high — vaccine-preventable diseases annually kill an estimated 700,000 children under the age of 5, with almost all of those deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

Anyone can see this, of course, as these measles outbreaks continue to emerge despite one of the most effective vaccines ever developed. People even resort to violence, shooting at polio vaccine workers and the police officers protecting them, as happened in early June in Pakistan — one of two countries in the world where polio is still endemic.

It is important to appreciate vaccines as a gift from medicine and make sure our children will not suffer from diseases that are fully preventable. Vaccines are safe, thoroughly evaluated and can prevent so much illness and death.

Yes, we should understand that vaccines are like any other medicines in that they come with potential side effects. However, parents should not hesitate to have their children vaccinated; the huge benefits far outweigh the risks.

The-CNN-Wire
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