-
Source: Reuters
Global efforts to immunise children against life-threatening
diseases set a record high last year but failed to protect millions
of youngsters in the world's poorest countries, health officials
said.
A joint report by the World Health Organisation, United Nations and
World Bank said 106 million babies under the age of one were
vaccinated in 2008, while a record 120 vaccines became available
against a host of diseases from measles and flu to meningitis and a
virus linked to cancer.
The data provide a snapshot of an immunisation boom that has
tripled the global vaccine market to $22.5 billion in eight years
and set off a renaissance of vaccine development aimed at AIDS,
malaria, tuberculosis and dengue fever.
The report coincides with new efforts to provide the world with a
vaccine against the H1N1 flu that WHO declared a pandemic in
June.
Immunisation, in a downward spiral before 2000, has gained momentum
in recent years partly through a financing partnership among WHO,
the UN childrens' fund UNICEF, the World Bank and the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation.
The partnership, known as the GAVI Alliance, also includes drug
makers such as GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG, Crucell NV, Merck
& Co Inc, Sanofi Pasteur and Wyeth.
As a result of recent efforts, vaccines now reach more than 200
million children in developing countries.
But the report also acknowledged significant shortcomings in the
immunisation campaign, saying that 24 million infants - almost 20%
of the children born each year - did not receive first-year-of-life
vaccinations that are common in the wealthiest countries.
The children who missed out typically live in poorly served remote
rural areas, deprived urban settings, fragile states and
strife-torn regions, mostly in Africa and Asia.
Major push
The report said a major push was under way to protect children in
difficult-to-reach areas.
It estimated that an additional investment of $US1 billion would be
needed to ensure that new and existing vaccines are available to
all children in the world's 72 poorest countries where preventable
diseases take their deadliest toll.
Rising demand for immunisation has been a boon to manufacturers in
the developing world, which now meet 86% of global demand for
traditional vaccines against disease such as measles, whooping
cough, tetanus and diphtheria.
But so-called middle-income countries are not eligible for
financial assistance from the GAVI Alliance, even though many of
their people live on less than $US2 a day.
That makes it hard for them to afford new vaccines against
pneumococcal disease, rotavirus diarrhea and the human
papillomavirus that can cause cervical, penile and head and neck
cancers.
"Even at greatly reduced prices, the cost of new vaccines ... are
individually greater than the cost of all other traditional
vaccines combined," the report said.
Still the report said immunisation was partly responsible for the
first documented decline in annual deaths among children to below
10 million. Clean water, sanitation and better care were the other
contributing factors.
The report also credited immunisation with helping to bring about a
74% drop in worldwide deaths from measles between 2000 and
2007.
