Geridoc

Geriatrician, Hospitalist, Patient Advocate, Healthcare Educator

Vaccines May Change the Future of Healthcare

Per Linda Geddes in an article published in The Guardian, “Cancer and heart disease vaccines ‘ready by end of the decade’”

“Millions of lives could be saved by a groundbreaking set of new vaccines for a range of conditions including cancer, experts have said. A leading pharmaceutical firm said it is confident that jabs for cancer, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, and other conditions will be ready by 2030. Studies into these vaccinations are also showing “tremendous promise”, with some researchers saying 15 years’ worth of progress has been “unspooled” in 12 to 18 months thanks to the success of the Covid jab. Dr Paul Burton, the chief medical officer of pharmaceutical company Moderna, said he believes the firm will be able to offer such treatments for “all sorts of disease areas” in as little as five years. The firm, which created a leading coronavirus vaccine, is developing cancer vaccines that target different tumour types. Burton said: “We will have that vaccine and it will be highly effective, and it will save many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. I think we will be able to offer personalised cancer vaccines against multiple different tumour types to people around the world.” .”

This is something to watch for in the future. Something good that may have come out of COVID-19 pandemic is the role vaccines will play in the future of healthcare in management of cancer and prevention of chronic health conditions.