The Chief Medical Officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty has released his Annual Report for 2025 and the focus for this year is on infectious diseases.
Prof Whitty makes a number of key points, including:
- The great majority of deaths from infections are now in older people, who can also suffer significant harms from infections, but we are much less systematic about preventing infections in older age.
- Vaccines provide protection from some of the worst infections and have eliminated or could eliminate many major diseases in the UK, from polio to cervical cancer. England and the wider UK still have some of the world’s highest vaccine uptake rates but these are drifting down- we must turn this around.
- Unlike other major disease types infections can evolve around our protections, potentially making them ineffective including antimicrobial resistance and some vaccines. We therefore need constantly to innovate to stay ahead of this evolution.
- Major pandemics and epidemics of new or emerging diseases have always occurred, and always will. We need to maintain our ability to respond to them rapidly. It is very easy to let down our guard and disinvest between emergencies, but we will always regret it if we do when the next emergency strikes.
- England has great expertise in preventing, diagnosing and treating people with rare, serious and imported infections in the UK and globally. We need to maintain this capacity to reduce the risk to all.
Prof. Whitty points out that the major risk infections pose to older people is often underappreciated. Older adults are more likely to acquire many infections, much more likely for infections to become severe, and the great majority of those who die of infections are older adults. Infections also increase the risk of other major diseases of older age including stroke and heart attacks, often for weeks after the infection has gone.
Even less severe infections can significantly impair the quality of life of older people, leading to pain, reduced mobility, repeated hospital admissions and social isolation. We have made remarkable progress in preventing severe infections in children and young adults, and need to achieve similar success in older adults. Recent successes in vaccines for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), shingles and Covid-19 show what is possible.
He also goes on to discuss vaccines. Some of the most effective vaccines are against extremely dangerous infections including several previously relatively common causes of meningitis, neurological disease and deaths in children such as meningococcus, HiB, measles and polio.
Vaccines provided in childhood also provide lifelong protection against cervical and liver cancer. Maintaining good vaccination rates protects the children vaccinated and those around them. UK vaccination rates are high by global standards, but some have been drifting down. Since being vaccinated protects both the child involved and all those around them it is in the interests of everybody in society that this is reversed.
Prof. Whitty said: “Protecting children against previously common serious infections by vaccination is one of the greatest achievements of medicine, and we must not throw this away by allowing vaccination rates to fall
“The great majority of deaths from infections are now in older adults. Infections can also cause strokes, heart attacks and reduce quality of life and independence in older people. We need to be much more systematic about preventing infections in older adults as we have done in children and young adults.”
