Vaccination is one of the most successful global health interventions in history, eradicating or eliminating some of the deadliest diseases through decades of coordinated effort. But that success is increasingly under pressure. Trust in vaccines has declined globally, fueled by the proliferation of misinformation and growing politicization of public health, making rising vaccine hesitancy one of the defining global health threats today.

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President Donald Trump nominated former Deputy Surgeon General Erica Schwartz, a physician, as director of the Centers for ​Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Schwartz is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who served as a deputy surgeon general during the COVID-19 pandemic in Trump's first term. Schwartz played a key role in the nation's COVID response, helping coordinate national preparedness during the first year of the pandemic.
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From a once-in-a-century global pandemic, to wars in Europe and the Middle East, to the unchecked rise of AI and social media technologies, we are living in an age of threats against humanity that are profound, fast-moving, and interconnected.

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In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with Dr Seth Berkley, infectious disease epidemiologist, former CEO of Gavi, and co-founder of COVAX, about what the world got right and wrong during COVID-19.

They discuss vaccine equity, pandemic preparedness, the politicisation of public health, and why the world remains dangerously vulnerable to future outbreaks. From the rapid development of mRNA vaccines to the rise of vaccine disinformation and the growing threat of H5N1 bird flu, this conversation is a sobering reminder that pandemics do not end just because societies stop wanting to talk about them.

In the afternoon on Friday, March 27, Georgetown University’s Medical and Dental Building turned into a site of organized chaos as an unknown infection struck. Dozens of people hustled through the hallways, trying to earn enough money to buy food and stay healthy. Public health staffers tried their best to execute their roles, some with little prior experience, the atmosphere creating a trial by fire. Government instructions were scant, and media reports were often conflicting. It was a palpable frenzy of activity and cooperation.
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Dr Seth Berkley is an epidemiologist and global health leader whose career has been shaped by one central problem: vaccines save lives, but only if people can actually get them.

His 40-year career has spanned the global, from helping to build Uganda’s first HIV surveillance system and founding the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; to leading Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for more than a decade – overseeing the immunisation of hundreds of millions of children worldwide. And when COVID-19 struck, Seth co-founded COVAX, the global initiative designed to stop wealthy nations monopolising vaccines.

In conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Seth discusses the highs and lows of his globe-trotting career - from saving millions of young lives through vaccine distribution, to setting his own shattered leg after a climbing accident in Namibia - and addresses the huge challenge of tackling vaccine scepticism.

While the School of Public Health was not officially founded until 2013, public health has remained a pertinent topic since the University’s founding. On Monday, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Faculty Fellow in University History William Goedel PhD’20 hosted a talk on the longer evolution of public health at the University, starting primarily in the 1800s.

At first glance, newly released data on immunization rates among children in Massachusetts seem to validate the efforts by state officials to lead a national resistance to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s antivax ideology.

And indeed, overall vaccination rates this school year held firm, according to the Department of Public Health, itself an accomplishment at a time when the federal government is aggressively trying to reverse decades of time-tested immunization policy.

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The United States declared victory in the fight against measles in 2000, saying the once common and deadly illness had been eliminated. But that could be changing, as measles makes an unwelcome global comeback. Canada already lost its measles-elimination status last year, and now the United States and Mexico—where cases have climbed into the thousands—face a similar fate.

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Experts warn that communities underestimate measles’ danger

A sharp rise in U.S. measles cases is linked to falling MMR vaccination rates and growing immunity gaps

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Respiratory syncytial virus is continuing to spread later into the spring than usual, driving most states to extend the window for RSV immunizations for eligible infants and toddlers.

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