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" You'd see little shallow graves, lined up, one after the other - babies. That's what happens when measles goes through a nutritionally deficient community. It's a horrible disease, and it spreads incredibly efficiently. "

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" The return on investment in global health is tremendous, and the biggest bang for the buck comes from vaccines. Vaccines are among the most successful and cost-effective health investments in history. "

Seth Berkley

Health

History

Successful

" Measles is probably the best argument for why there needs to be global health, and why we have to think about it as a global public good. Because in a sense, measles is the canary in the coal mine for immunization. It is, you know, highly transmissible. The vaccine costs 15 cents, so it's not - you know, shouldn't be an issue in terms of cost. "

" When AIDS first appeared, people didn't know what it was. You'll remember that it affected mostly young gay men - it was actually called GRID for a short period of time: Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Syndrome - and people thought it actually might be recreational drugs or other types of toxins. "

" Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power. "

" No country in the post-colonial era has thrived without first building its capacity to conduct scientific research. "

" The virus that causes AIDS is the trickiest pathogen scientists have ever confronted. It mutates furiously, it has decoys to evade the immune system, it attacks the very cells that are trying to fight it, and it quickly hides itself in your genome. "

" With infectious disease, without vaccines, there's no safety in numbers. "

" The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is the perfect place for a dialogue that brings together industry, civil society, U.N. agencies, and countries around a shared response to the challenge of protecting children against vaccine-preventable illness. "

" In global health, emergency vaccine stockpiles are like the insurance policy you never really wanted to take out: you resent the cost and have mixed feelings about never making a claim. Moreover, given that a stockpile is often a last resort, if you ever fall back on it, you have, in some way, already failed. "

" If you want to know the value of vaccines, just spend some time in a clinic in Africa. The faces of the mothers and fathers say it all: vaccines prevent illness and save lives. "

" Science is one of the comparative advantages of our knowledge-based economy, and focusing on our prowess in providing better tools to address diseases of poverty is one of the best forms of foreign aid. "

" Now, you might think of flu as just a really bad cold, but it can be a death sentence. Every year, 36,000 people in the United States die of seasonal flu. In the developing world, the data is much sketchier, but the death toll is almost certainly higher. "

" Now, when you get a viral infection, what normally happens is it takes days or weeks for your body to fight back at full strength, and that might be too late. When you're pre-immunized, what happens is you have forces in your body pre-trained to recognize and defeat specific foes. So that's really how vaccines work. "

" You can't stop wars to build tertiary teaching hospitals, but you can say, 'Let's stop for a couple of days to immunise the kids.' It has been done. "

" Children who are healthy - and have adequate nutrition - are much more likely to attend school. People who finish school and do well have higher earning potential in their adult lives. "

" As demonstrated by the emergence of the Mexican swine flu in the U.S., infectious diseases have little respect for borders; helping developing countries detect and deal with their diseases is the surest way for us to protect ourselves from new and potentially devastating epidemics. "

" I was a serial monogamist. "

Seth Berkley

Serial

" In large part, thanks to widespread immunization, the number of young children dying each year has declined significantly, from approximately 14 million in 1979 to slightly less than eight million in 2010. "

" Land degradation, rising sea levels, famine, and conflict will continue to drive people from their homes and towards cities, with megacities like Mexico City and Lagos becoming increasingly common in some of the poorest parts of the world. "

" I wish we could have state-of-the-art hospitals in every corner of the earth... but realistically, it's going to be a while before that can happen. But we can immunise every kid on earth, and we can prevent these diseases. It's only a matter of political will, a little bit of money and some systems to do it. "

" The pathway to a more sustainable future for all children must include access to the basic building blocks of good health, including nutrition, water, and immunizations. "

" For just a few dollars a dose, vaccines save lives and help reduce poverty. Unlike medical treatment, they provide a lifetime of protection from deadly and debilitating disease. They are safe and effective. They cut healthcare and treatment costs, reduce the number of hospital visits, and ensure healthier children, families and communities. "

" We know that children who are healthier do not require medical treatment or care, both of which cost time and money. So, by avoiding illness, infants have a greater chance of growing into healthier children who are able to attend school and become more productive members of society. "

" History will not judge HIV/AIDS kindly... the harshest words will be reserved for how the world responded, or rather failed to respond, to the epidemic. "

" We've actually eliminated Type II polio in the world, at least as far as we can tell. "

" GAVI works collaboratively with the private sector - from investment banks to vaccine suppliers to corporations to members of the Forbes 400 - to find new and better ways to raise and apply resources and broaden the base of participants in global health. "

" The GAVI Alliance has achieved many things in its first dozen years, but none more important than helping save more than 5.5 million lives and prevent untold illness and suffering. "

" Yellow fever outbreaks are not uncommon. But, as with other infectious diseases, when they occur in urban areas, they can play out very differently - not least in terms of the speed and scale at which they can spread. "

" Without strong health systems in place, the higher the population density, the more difficult it becomes to prevent and control outbreaks, and not just because of the increased risk of contagion. "

" As megacities like Mexico City and Lagos become increasingly common, we could see a rise of the urban epidemic and a new era of infectious disease threatening global health security. "