On Wednesday, July 28th 2021, The Cyprus Institute organized the public lecture entitled “Vacciness: Myths and Facts”. The speaker was the President of The Cyprus Institute, and Chair of Infectious Diseases and Immunity at Imperial College London, Prof. George K. Christophides. The public talk was held on CyI’s premises and was organized within the context of the Summer Nights with Science, Music and Wine Series.

In his talk, Prof. Christophides, focused on the importance of vaccines as a cornerstone for the protection of public health, the challenges of vaccines, and the myths and realities that surround them. In his presentation, Prof. Christofides initially presented a historical background of the development of the most important vaccines, starting from the 18th century until today, and stressed that vaccines have always been a controversial subject in many countries. However, “vaccines have saved millions of lives in recent human history and helped eradicate or control devastating infectious diseases”, he said.

Commenting on the current situation, Prof. Christophides pointed out that vaccines are perhaps the only weapon against the COVID-19 pandemic and their effectiveness dispels one by one the myths, but also the conspiracy scenarios that accompany them. In addition, he indicated that people should get vaccinated as soon as possible, not only to protect themselves but also their loved ones, and to end the suffering of the last two years. Finally, Prof. Christophides concluded that if we are not vaccinated, the situation will simply be perpetuated, and many more people will get sick or die from COVID-19.