New Funds for Vaccines to Aid Developing Countries
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NEW YORK, Feb 13 (OneWorld) - A new international plan to develop innovative and effective vaccines is raising hopes for a successful fight against deadly diseases that kill millions of children in poor countries every year.
Last week, five major industrial nations agreed to spend $1.5 billion to produce new vaccines against pneumonia, meningitis, and other infectious diseases. The governments of Canada, Britain, Italy, Norway, and Russia, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said they were fully committed to financing the research and development of new vaccines. At a meeting in Rome, donors unveiled a pilot plan to create an "Advance Market Commitment" for the development of vaccines that could help save the lives of 5.4 million young children and infants by 2030. The plan, which will provide 7 to 10 years of funding for the development of future vaccines, also includes provisions to assure a long-term sustainable supply of the vaccines at an affordable price for poor countries. International civil society groups that played a key role in creating the pilot plan described the new initiative as "the first step in a historic effort" to create a market for lifesaving vaccines. "This is a big deal for the development community and the millions of kids whose lives will be saved as a result," said Owen Barder of the Center for Global Development, a U.S.-based independent think tank that helped to lay the groundwork for the new funding mechanism. The funding plan will create incentives for private companies to adapt the vaccine for the strains of pneumococcal disease that have become a leading cause of child mortality in the developing world. According to the Center, nearly 2 million children die from pneumonia every year. The disease is also responsible for increasing the risk of HIV/AIDS infection among children. "With this initiative, we can save lives and we will do it with the investment and expertise of industry," Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, told donors in Rome. "The key aim is to accelerate the production of viable and urgently needed vaccines," he said. A pneumococcal vaccine is already available in the U.S. market and other developed countries, but at the price of $60 per dose, it is beyond the reach of those living in poor countries. The immunization process requires that a child must be given at least three doses. Experts say currently most manufacturers lack the capacity to provide a vaccine well-suited to the developing world on a large scale, and that there is an urgent need for extended-protection vaccines to bring pneumococcal disease under control. An independent experts body, with representation from developing and industrialized countries, has recommended that the pilot plan focus on efforts to control the pneumococcal disease first and then move on to develop vaccines against other diseases. "We expect that new pneumococcal vaccines will reach developing countries by 2010," said Julian Lob-Levyt, executive secretary of the GAVI Alliance, an international consortium that promotes access to vaccines in poor countries and includes representatives from donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the pharmaceutical industry, private foundations, and civil society. Health advocacy groups involved in global initiatives to fight HIV/AIDS said they were quite pleased with the efforts to create the new funding plan for vaccine production. "It will reinforce a number of ongoing efforts to promote vaccine products," said Robert Hecht, senior vice president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, about the new plan. However, according to Hecht, that was not enough. "We also need more direct financial support for research and development by the G8 (Group of Eight industrialized countries) and other governments, and we must explore the use of additional incentives (to promote vaccine production)," he said. Hecht, whose group collaborated with the World Bank and other organizations in finalizing the new funding mechanism, observed that the development of an AIDS vaccine was imperative to control the epidemic. "The exceptional scientific and financial challenges posed by the search for a safe, effective vaccine to prevent HIV infection must be matched by equal efforts to overcome them," he said. Despite worldwide efforts to combat the deadly epidemic, more than 12,000 people are still infected by HIV/AIDS every day. Last year, nearly 3 million people died as a result of AIDS. The financial assistance for the development of the new pneumococcal vaccine includes $635 million from Italy, $485 million from Britain, $200 million from Canada, $80 million from Russia, $50 million from Norway and $50 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. |
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