According to the World Health Organization, more than 240 million people contract malaria each year, one million people die from tuberculosis and antibiotic resistance has already become one of the ten threats to global public health.
These are data that show realities that impact millions of people and that remind us that even today there are pandemics and endemics in the world that continue to claim too many lives.
Realities that may sound distant but are becoming less so, since factors such as climate change or globalization itself facilitate the proliferation of diseases transmitted by vectors in new environments.
And if the mere existence of these diseases that are a drag on global progress does not make those responsible for providing health and well-being reflect, we also have the challenges faced by societies that are in less vulnerable positions.
Challenges such as the increase in comorbidities associated with a longer life expectancy, the increase in chronic diseases or the appearance of diseases at increasingly younger ages. The data on pathologies such as cancer, where early onset has increased by almost 80% in the last three decades, shows the need to take action.
The recipe to combat this entire list of threats to our health is the same: science. We saw it during Covid and our ancestors saw it with key milestones such as the eradication of smallpox or the development of key innovations such as penicillin.
Key factor
«If science is the basis that allows health progress, prevention is the key to achieving it»
Health science needs a favorable environment. It needs governments that prioritize it in their policies, it needs a global vision that transcends borders and a One Health approach that recognizes the relationship between human, environmental and animal health.
It also requires companies like ours, companies specialized in developing science that prioritize the great challenges in health regardless of who they impact and that continue investing in areas such as antibiotics and the vaccinessafe value to face threats against public health.
In Spain, pharmaceutical companies invest more than 1.4 billion euros in biomedical R&D, very important figures that mean, in the case of GSK, that Spain is the second country in volume of clinical research only surpassed by the United States.
Positive figures that also attract the attention of other very thriving regions that understand the strategic opportunity to develop R&D in health. In fact, a recent report indicates that China will surpass Europe for the first time in 2023 as a creator of new active ingredients.
If science is the basis that allows health progress, prevention is the key to achieving it. There is currently no health intervention that is more cost-efficient or has more impact than investing in prevention, and this is common and applicable to all societies.
However, prevention is often forgotten. An underfinanced area – it represents only 3.5% of total health spending in our country – which, however, provides us with opportunities long before health care.
Opportunities that range from the creation of environments that promote healthy lifestyle habits and prioritize the protection of the most vulnerable groups, to the defense of the environment. In fact, according to the United Nations, air pollution has already become the second risk factor for premature death worldwide.
Prevention also involves anticipating the disease. We have key tools in this area such as screening or promoting early diagnosis and, of course, we have vaccination. A measure that saves up to 5 million lives every year and returns up to 19 euros to the system for every euro invested.
At GSK we are very clear that without science there is no health and without health, there is no future. That is why we research in areas such as infectious diseases, immunology, the respiratory area or oncohematology to achieve the most important objective of all, which is none other than to continue helping to improve people’s lives.
#science #health #health #future
