Comment: We're in this together when it comes to a successful vaccination programme

Vaccine development is a key component of controlling a pandemic working alongside human behaviour and testing, tracing and quarantining, writes Professor Mary Horgan

The rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines does not mean that the process was rushed, according to Professor Mary Horgan, who added that vaccines are evaluated more than any medication we take or medical device we use. FIle Picture: Yui Mok/PA Wire

Vaccination and clean water have been the most successful public health intervention of the past century. 

Vaccination programmes have saved millions of lives since their inception more than two centuries ago following Edward Jenner’s scientific observation that cowpox virus protected against smallpox.