2024 was a record-setting year for lifesaving vaccines

There’s a “paradox” at work in global health, as the philanthropist Bill Gates wrote last week. Even as funding for global health is declining, the science that supports those efforts is accelerating. And nowhere is that divergence more apparent than in the most important tool in public health: vaccines.

Earlier this week Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance — a public-private partnership that does more than any other organization to get vaccines to people in poor countries — reported that its vaccines saved a record-breaking 1.7 million people in 2024. That’s 400,000 more lives saved than in 2023, enough to produce some $20 billion in economic benefits through reduced health care costs and healthier, more productive populations.

In total 72 million children were vaccinated through Gavi last year,