Data gaps in prevention are worrying – and dangerous
Our most recent report finds that despite decades of progress, Europe is worryingly far from meeting UN targets for HIV eradication. The estimated 1.3 million new HIV infections in 2023 is >3 times higher than the 2025 target of 370.000. We found that barriers to meeting eradication targets exist at every level — from individual awareness to data gaps and underfunded policies. Crucially, the “cost of complacency” is high — without urgent action a further increase in diagnoses is predicted and costs of HIV care could rise to over €56.7bn by 2030 across five EU countries alone.
Similarly, despite there being a clear evidence base for the benefits of vaccines, our research also finds that on average, current immunisation spending in many countries may be too low to meet global vaccine targets. Here too, data gaps across age groups and programs severely limit effective policy-making, resource allocation, and program monitoring. Our submission to a recent UK parliamentary inquiry draws on this new research, among others, and stresses the need to invest in prevention in order for the UK to adapt to the realities of an ageing society.
We also make the case for policymaking to be informed by more robust evidence in another OHE report featured in this Bulletin, which found the public assigns greater relative value to health gains at almost every level of severity, compared with NICE’s current severity modifier.
