Howard Lesser 02 February 2010

The Gates vaccine initiative is expected to save the lives of millions of children worldwide over the next decade.

Announcement of a $10-billion, ten-year research commitment by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for vaccines against pneumonia and pneumococcal diseases is expected to save the lives of nearly 1.6 million children every year.  The initiative, unveiled last Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, continues to be hailed at this week’s World Health Organization (WHO) Global Immunization Meeting in Geneva, according to Dr. Orin Levine, the executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University (IVAC).

“The immunization world was galvanized ten years ago by the Gates announcement in Davos, and we are re-galvanized by this decade of vaccines, a decade that we hope is really the first decade of a century of vaccines. And it has just completely energized the immunization community here in Geneva,” said Dr. Levine.

 

Bill and Melinda Gates unveil a $10 billion vaccine initiative at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 29 January 2010

He says that immunization against the world’s leading killer of children under age five is considered a priority in developing countries, where limited access to effective inoculation has left more than 800,000 children defenseless against infections that, when compounded by HIV/AIDS, most often can mean death.

“The Gates Foundation commitment is going to be a huge boost to vaccine development and delivery for life-saving vaccines for children all over the world.  I think the realistic expectation is that it’s going to save millions of children’s lives over the next ten years,” he predicted.

Dr. Levine points out that the most vulnerable children in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the developing world have lacked access to quality care to shield them from high risk factors like HIV and malnutrition.  He says African governments are keenly committed to expanding widespread use of vaccines currently on the market and those under development. 

In 2006, Rwanda became the first African country to introduce pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) in a nationwide campaign.  The Gambia followed Rwanda’s lead, and ten or more countries are expected soon also to embrace the initiative, including Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Mali, and the Central African Republic.  Dr. Levine says they’ll have an amply assortment of proven medications to rely on.

“There are three licensed vaccines from two manufacturers.  The vaccine manufacturer Wyeth, which now becomes Pfizer, came out with the first vaccine, which had seven important serotypes and has now developed a formulation that has 13 serotypes.  And Glaxo-Smith-Kline has a vaccine that has ten important serotypes and an important cause of pneumonia and ear infections called Haemophilus influenza.  Those vaccines are increasingly getting used and should provide widespread protection around the globe,” he noted.