Asia urged to invest more in vaccines in postpandemic era

David Peacock, president of MSD in Asia Pacific–contributed photo

Greater investments in vaccines are needed in the Asian region as health challenges continue to shift and evolve in the world’s largest continent following the COVID-19 outbreak, according to biopharmaceutical company MSD.

David Peacock, president of MSD in Asia-Pacific, highlighted the necessity of being prepared for future diseases that might hit the region.

“It’s actually time to invest money [into] bringing more products that can actually prevent disease because you save so much money in preventing disease versus paying for the consequences,” Peacock told the Inquirer.

MSD, known as Merck in the United States and Canada, has been around for 130 years. It is engaged in the manufacturing of medicines and vaccines.

Its research also spans prevention and treatment of diseases in both people and animals, including cancer and other infectious diseases.

To make the case for greater vaccine investments, Peacock cited Australia and the United Kingdom, both of which invested heavily toward addressing health problems arising from the human papillomavirus (HPV).

“They are at a point now where they are ready to declare that they have eliminated cervical cancer. The reason for that is they invested about 12 years ago in vaccinating their whole population against HPV,” Peacock said.

“We need Asia to actually invest. One of the biggest challenges is getting governments to invest in vaccination,” he also said.

He added measures must also be taken to preemptively address pneumococcal diseases, such as pneumonia and bloodstream infections, as well as rotavirus, which causes diarrhea and other complications among infants and young children.

He also emphasized the significance of infrastructure to effectively vaccinate the majority of a country’s population.

He sees cardiovascular disease as a rising problem that must be addressed sooner rather than later as people live with poor diet.

“There’s more food available for us. And unfortunately a lot of that food, we supplement with sugar. And so you are seeing these huge spikes in diabetes in Asia as we transition from rice-based diets with fish and meat over to caloric diets with bread and sugars,” said Peacock. INQ