Washington (SmartAboutHealth) – Two new studies published in the journal Health Affairs have revealed that by extending the reach of vaccines for kids around the world, millions of lives could be saved.

The two studies, as stated, were both published on Thursday in the highly-respected medical journal, and focused on the reach of children’s vaccines around the world.

The studies were conducted at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health but were carried out by two different teams of researchers, led by Meghan Stack and Sachiko Ozawa respectively.

What they found though, when the data was put together, is pretty astounding.

By simply increasing the number of vaccine programs in 72 countries in the world could save the lives of over 6 million children.

These countries include middle-income as well as poor countries around the world.

The belief is that by increasing the effort that goes into these vaccination programs, it would save lives by protecting more children against diseases such as whooping cough, measles, and others.

These diseases can all be prevented simply via an immunization, but these have been long out of reach for many countries.

Preventable diseases account for millions of childrens deaths around the world, as well as billions spent in treatment costs.

By beefing up the vaccination programs, these studies concluded, millons of lives would be saved, as well billions of dollars in health costs.