Guest lecture on Global Health: Challenge, Progress and Path Forward

I had the privilege of being invited as a guest lecturer on global health at two institutions: the Faculty of Medicine at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) and Harsh Nursing School in India.

During my talks, I focused on immunization as a means to understand health inequities. Vaccines are a proven, highly effective public health intervention, often providing a return on investment of between $10 and $25 for each dollar spent. Despite this, approximately 14.5 million children still miss their vaccinations, categorizing them as “zero-dose” children. This situation places them at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) like measles, which has recently resurfaced and caused fatalities in high-income countries such as the United States, as well as outbreaks of whooping cough in Japan and other VPD outbreaks in different regions or countries. Diseases do not recognize borders; therefore, achieving high vaccination coverage is essential to establish herd immunity. Uncontained outbreaks can escalate into epidemics and even pandemics, as we saw with COVID-19.

The COVID-19 vaccination drive illustrates the global effort to tackle inequity in public health resources such as vaccines. Vaccine nationalism hindered a swift pandemic response. The COVAX facility exemplified global solidarity by ensuring vaccines were accessible to all countries in a phased and evidence-based manner. The World Health Organization (WHO) played a pivotal role by issuing position papers on COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.

With World Immunization Week 2025 in focus, we reflected on the remarkable achievement of global smallpox eradication in 1980. However, we still have significant work ahead of us:

• Eradicate Polio
• Eliminate Measles and Rubella
• Eliminate Hepatitis B
• Eliminate Cervical cancer

Additionally, we must prepare for future pandemics, such as “Disease X.” Recently, a draft of the Pandemic Accord was agreed upon and is awaiting approval from the World Health Assembly in 2025, marking another milestone for global health.

Thank Dr. Iswandy from UPI and Mr. Harshad from Harsh Nursing School for inviting me. I truly enjoyed the interactions during our sessions.

Thanks, Drs Vinod Kumar Bura and Gyanendra GHALE for fine-tuning my draft presentation.

6 – 7 May 2025

Indonesia – India

Documentation of the activities