The writer is an FT contributing editor and writes the Chartbook newsletter

In a world of polycrisis, in which intersecting problems compound each other and there are few easy wins, it is all the more important to recognise those policy choices that are truly obvious. Vaccines are one such investment. Since the 1960s, global vaccination campaigns have eradicated smallpox, suppressed polio and contained measles. Modest expenditures on public health have saved tens of millions of lives, reduced morbidity and allowed children around the world to develop into adults capable of living healthy and productive lives. 

After years of development, 2023 saw the approval of a second vaccine for malaria, a scourge which causes more than 600,000 deaths annually. A recent study on a vaccine for Strep A, a pathogen that causes 600,000 deaths and 600mn cases of pharyngitis annually, calculates that an investment of less than $60bn would deliver benefits in excess of $1.6tn.