Celebrating comms excellence

Did you know that over the past 50 years, an estimated 154 million lives have been saved by effective immunisations? That’s equivalent to the total combined populations across the UK and Germany. From diphtheria and tetanus to whooping cough and measles, today more than 20 life-threatening diseases can be prevented.

History also shows us that we have managed to eliminate – and even eradicate – certain diseases, including smallpox, with malaria having the potential of becoming a thing of the past in our lifetime. However, millions of people still live with serious diseases, with scientists working towards finding more effective treatments and cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancers and HIV.

Having new drugs developed and approved is only the beginning. More must also be done to ensure that clinical trial participants reflect the profile of the people who need the treatments the most, as well as finding more ways of ensuring that those people get access to the medicines once available. We’ve been working with a group of visionaries to rethink clinical trials and develop a set of recommendations around how best to put the participant in mind.

Sustainable health cannot be solved by science, clinical trial representation and access alone. It’s also down to how we live our lives. A healthy lifestyle can help protect us from some of the main causes of early death, including high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart attack and stroke.

Will we ever see a world where nobody gets sick? Unfortunately, it looks highly unlikely. There are just too many complex diseases – and many of them evolving or emerging over time – which means treatments need to evolve too. However, there is no doubt that over the next 50 years we will see many more diseases disappearing. A future where health is more sustainable, mainly thanks to scientific discoveries by the pharmaceutical industry that we can only dream of becoming a reality today.

Julia Crawford is Director at 67health