‘The deaths of babies in Samoa was a big personal motivation; we had to take action,’ says Prof Michael Moore. ‘Eight-three deaths in hospitals – preventable deaths. Many people live in rural areas, so the true figure is probably much higher.’
The 2019 measles outbreak saw over 5,700 cases (in a population of just over 200,000 people) after vaccination rates had fallen to 31% fuelled by misinformation about the death of a child following a medication error by two nurses. Anti-vaccine campaigners saw an opportunity to sow doubt, and the government suspended immunisation programmes in response to the public outcry. In June of that year, Robert F. Kennedy junior visited Samoa to meet local anti-vaccine activists and the country’s Prime Minister.
‘I wonder how many of those deaths may be attributable to the campaign of RFK junior,’ Prof Moore asks of the man US President Donald Trump has picked as his Health Secretary.
Prof Moore is speaking to Vaccines Today from his home in Canberra, Australia, about his commitment to drive down preventable diseases in his role as Chair of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) International Immunization Policy Taskforce.
‘The Taskforce resulted from conversations I had with others in the Federation in the wake of the Samoa outbreak,’ he recalls. ‘We wanted to work with others to make an impact globally.’
Given his long career in public health, politics and as an advocate of polio eradication through his involvement in Rotary International, Prof Moore was asked to lead the work of the Taskforce. It seemed a worthwhile but manageable role for an expert easing into semi-retirement. ‘That was November 2019,’ he says. ‘Then COVID-19 struck.’
The WFPHA International Immunization Policy Taskforce: what is it?
The WFPHA represents over 5 million public health professionals worldwide. The Federation’s Immunization Taskforce brings together experts on vaccination policy to run webinars and publish papers. It engages not only public health associations and healthcare workers, but also policymakers, international bodies and organisations with an interest in the field of vaccination – such as advocates of healthy ageing.
See their policies, publications and videos – and find out about Global Public Health Week 2025, organised by the WFPHA.
The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines saw strong uptake in some countries, including Australia where Prof Moore works, as well as an uptick in vaccine hesitancy. ‘There was an amazing response initially, followed by vaccine fatigue and a degree of complacency,’ he says. ‘That gave an opportunity to the very small percentage of committed anti-vaxx activists who seized on doubts and safety concerns.’
It is, Prof Moore notes, entirely healthy to have questions about the safety of vaccines. These should be addressed directly if public health authorities want to build trust. ‘It requires honesty on our part,’ he says. ‘We often haven’t been clear enough about adverse incidents, and have not done enough to look after those affected. We need to be more upfront: they do occur but the chances are miniscule whereas the risk of [vaccine-preventable] disease is much higher.’
‘Vaccines are an investment’
As well as engaging with the public and with health professionals about immunisation, Prof Moore sees political decision-makers as a key consistency. Getting politicians and bureaucrats to look towards a twenty-year horizon can be a challenge. Fortunately, Prof Moore speaks their language. He was an independent member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly for four terms (1989-2001) and served as Minister for Health and Community Care for three years.
Taking COVID-19 as a springboard for more proactive vaccination policies, the WFPHA has turned its focus to supporting topics such as life-course immunisation and investment in prevention. A recent paper on Sustainable Financing of Immunisation Programmes makes the case for viewing vaccines as an investment rather than a cost.
‘Vaccination protects healthy systems by avoiding lengthy waiting and ensuring hospitals can be used for treating accidents, cancer and so on,’ he says. ‘We should see vaccination as an investment in health systems and in productivity – these are things health ministers and treasurers think about.’
The immediate priorities of politicians are often out of step with the longer-term benefits of vaccination. Elections come around every four or five years, but the return on investment of HPV vaccines, for example, will be a sharp drop in cervical cancer rates a decade or two after programmes were introduced. The exception was COVID-19 vaccination where the payback was much shorter: vaccine programmes not only improve productivity, they reduced strain on hospitals and facilitated the reopening of society.
‘HPV is such a successful vaccine that Australia could achieve zero endemic cervical cancer cases ahead of its 2035 deadline,’ he says. ‘Part of our role [at WFPHA] is to ensure that decisions about how to spend money take a longer-term perspective.’
‘We also need elected politicians and civil servants to think about life-course immunisation, rather than just paediatric vaccination,’ Prof Moore adds. ‘Our Taskforce is trying to get this message out around the world by publishing papers and working with like-minded organisations such as the International Federation of Pharmacists [FIP] and the International Federation on Ageing (IFA)’.
Healthcare workers & vaccination
While there are a growing range of voices taking part in health policy – which can bring benefits – health professionals remain an enormously important group for the WFPHA. Ensuring high vaccination rates among nurses, doctors, pharmacists and others not only protects these frontline workers, it protects patients.
‘Healthcare workers are also great influencers,’ he adds. ‘If your cousin is a nurse who has seen adverse reactions to vaccination – and they have become vaccine hesitant – that’s a huge negative. We need to take a proactive approach to addressing hesitancy among health workers.’
Prof Moore says that at the core of this challenge is the ‘public health paradox’: The more successful prevention programmes become, the less concerned people are about the original problem. Hence, vaccines are victims of their own success. ‘Most of this generation of nurses and doctors have never seen a case of polio, whereas I still remember children coming to school wearing steel bars on their legs.’
Global Public Health Week, organised by the WFPHA, runs from April 7-11.
