Ronan Glynn highlights past vaccine successes to promote Covid-19 jabs

“While we await the introduction of vaccines against Covid-19, we must continue to ensure uptake of other vaccines currently available to us,” Dr Glynn said. Picture: Tom Honan/PA Wire

The deputy Chief Medical Officer has sought to encourage the public to avail of the Covid-19 vaccine when it is available - by drawing attention to the enormous public health impact other vaccines have had here.

With the country preparing to roll out its first doses in the new year, Dr Ronan Glynn said that vaccines in recent times have “saved more lives than any other public health intervention”.

Nowadays, most children receive immunisation shots from previously deadly diseases like mumps and measles as a matter of course within their first two years.

However, particularly in the past five years, scepticism has persisted among sections of the public as to the efficacy of such vaccines, or even regarding the motives for their introduction.

In a thread on his Twitter account, Dr Glynn ran through a timeline of the impact of vaccines here, starting in 1863 when vaccinations for - the eradicated, as of 1979 - smallpox in children was made compulsory. 

“This one vaccine saved hundreds of millions of lives globally,” Dr Glynn said.

Diphtheria was vaccinated for in the 1940s, he said, which saw Irish deaths drop from 318 in 1938 to zero by 1967. 

There hasn’t been a death from diphtheria in children in Ireland since then.

Polio, meningococcal meningitis, and measles are all highly dangerous diseases that have also been vaccinated almost out of existence in Ireland.

“While we await the introduction of vaccines against Covid-19, we must continue to ensure uptake of other vaccines currently available to us,” Dr Glynn said, while urging uptake of the newly introduced children’s flu shot, which is now available free for all children aged between two and 12.