The vaccine paradox

The next decade will likely bring astonishing successes in vaccine biology, discovery, and delivery. Justifiable confidence in this proposition led the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last year to pledge US$10 billion to a new Decade of Vaccines. For the world’s largest and most influential health foundation, vaccines are the number one priority. The foundation estimates that if vaccine coverage could be scaled up to 90%, the lives of 7·6 million children younger than five years could be saved between 2010 and 2019. If a malaria vaccine became available by 2014, this figure could rise by a further 1·1 million. To address the opportunity the Gates Foundation has identified, they brought together some of the leading scientists working in vaccines today to set out the hopes and possibilities for the coming decade. As  they gathered for their first meeting, broad optimism was tempered with caution. One contributor argued that “the present...