Measles vaccination has saved an estimated 94M lives globally since 1974

By the time you finish reading this, around 30 children will have been saved thanks to vaccines.

Over the last 50 years, that adds up to 150 million children. That’s more than twice the population of the United Kingdom. That’s 150 million children who will grow up, experience life, and contribute to the world; over a hundred million sets of parents who were spared the tragedy of having to bury their children.

This figure comes from a new study from Andrew Shattock and other researchers from around the world. They estimated the number of lives saved from vaccinations against different diseases over the past 50 years.

Vaccination against measles has had the biggest impact, saving 94 million lives over the last 50 years — more than 60% of the total.