Vaccine Financing Push Brings Results
Vaccine milestones in last decade:
* Intensified vaccination campaigns brought down global measles deaths by 74 percent.
* Polio is close to being eradicated and is today endemic in only four countries—down from 125 in 1988.
* Vaccine development has been booming, producing new life-saving vaccines, with more on the way.
* Developing countries have become vaccine-manufacturers, helping to keep traditional vaccines affordable.
* The last 10 years have seen “remarkable progress” in immunization and vaccine development.
* Innovative financing mechanisms such as immunization bonds are aiding the fight against infectious diseases.
* Rising costs of new vaccines, hard-to-reach children, pose concerns for the future.
GENEVA, 4th January 2010: More children than ever before are being immunized against infectious diseases, thanks to a big push this decade to manufacture, distribute and pay for vaccines and immunization in developing countries.
That’s the finding of a report on the “The State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunizations”, released in October 2009 by the World Bank, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).
In the last 10 years, intensified vaccination campaigns resulted in “remarkable progress” in conquering diseases like measles (mæslinger) and polio (børnelammelse).
Immunization, along with clean water and better sanitation, reduced the number of children under 5 dying every year from 17 million in 1970, to 10,5 million in 2000, and 9,2 million in 2007 (altså næsten en halvering fra 1970 til 2007, red.).
The report credits much of the progress in 72 of the poorest developing countries to the GAVI Alliance, a public-private vaccine-financing partnership whose members include UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as donor and developing country governments, private industry and civil society organizations.
GAVI’s efforts, combined with innovative financing mechanisms, enabled vaccines to reach 200 million children and avert an estimated 3,4 million premature deaths since 2000.
– It is an amazing success story for public health, says Amie Batson, assistant to World Bank Managing Director Graeme Wheeler and the World Bank’s original representative in the GAVI Alliance.
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