United Press International - November 20, 2002
William M. Reilly

The Rome-based World Health Organization and the New York-based U.N. Children's Fund, joined by the Washington-based World Bank officially launched the "State of the World's Vaccines and Immunization" report in Dakar, Senegal, but copies were also related at U.N. headquarters.

It points out that while vaccines have saved billions of lives in the past century, and are still the least expensive way of controlling the spread of infectious diseases, they are not reaching the populations that need them most.

"Vaccines are among the most cost-effective public health interventions," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, who served as chair of the joint initiative dubbed the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. "Today, no child should die from a vaccine-preventable disease. We need to invest more -- and more rationally -- in vaccine coverage and research and ensure access in all corners of the globe."

WHO Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland said, "In wealthy countries we tend to take the absence of certain illnesses for granted."

However, she added, "In many regions of the world it is more the rule than the exception for children to die of common childhood conditions such as measles, which alone causes about 700,000 deaths a year," she said.

Access to life-saving vaccines was the only way of avoiding major epidemics of new and old diseases, the doctor said.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn, a board member of GAVI, said the key to a well-functioning immunization and health system was in building financial sustainability from the outset, and bridging the gap between rich and poor countries in terms of access to vaccines.

The 96-page report cited low donor investment as one of the major reasons for the huge gaps in coverage, saying that external aid to developing countries for immunization was about $1.56 billion annually.

"With an additional investment of $250 million a year, at least 10 million more children would be reached with basic vaccines (while) a further $100 million a year would cover the cost of newer vaccines," including hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib), which together kill 970,000 children each year, it said.

The report also said low-income countries spend as little as $6 per person each year on health, including immunization, while access to vaccines was limited by the countries' poor economies and market situation for vaccines.

"For instance, while a vaccine with some efficacy for HIV/AIDS is now seen as possibly achievable within the next 10 years, only one clinical trial for this vaccine has been conducted in Africa, the continent that bears 70 percent of the world's HIV burden," said the report

According to a joint statement issued in Dakar by the reports producers, while children in developed nations have access to additional, newer and more expensive vaccines to protect them against major childhood diseases, only half of the children in sub-Saharan Africa have access to basic immunization against common diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, tetanus and whooping cough.

"In poor and isolated areas of developing countries, vaccines reach fewer than one in 20 children," the statement said.

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