Global immunization rates of children reached an all-time high last year, but millions of youngsters in the world’s poorest countries remain vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases, according to a new report released today by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the World Bank.
The State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunization reports that 4 out of 5 children now have access to life-saving vaccines — a record 106 million infants were immunized in 2008. Yet this still leaves around 24 million children who do not receive the complete round of regular shots before the age of one.
The report calls on the world’s wealthy nations to invest an extra US$1 billion annually to raise immunization rates above 90%. This would prevent an additional two million childhood deaths per year, the report says.
Some of this money is also needed to pay for the rising cost of immunization as more vaccines join the standard lot, said Rakesh Nangia, the World Bank’s operations and strategy director. By next year, Nangia estimates that routine immunization will cost US$18 per child, up from $3-5 in 1980. Once recently developed vaccines, including those that protect against pneumococcal disease and rotavirus diarrhea, come on board, he expects the price to rise to $30. “All good things cost, and so do these vaccinations,” Nangia said at a press briefing today in Washington DC.
Daisy Mafubelu, WHO assistant director-general of family and community health, noted that worldwide measles deaths have fallen by 74% since 2000, largely owing to vaccination initiatives. At the press conference, held a few blocks away from the White House, she borrowed from the President’s campaign slogan to voice her optimism that more of the world’s children can be protected. “I can’t help but steal the phrase: ‘Yes, we can.'”
Keeping things decidedly upbeat, Jon Andrus, head of the Pan American Health Organization’s immunization programme, pointed out that approximately 80 other experimental vaccines are now in late-stage testing, including around 30 that target diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, for which no vaccine currently exists.
Michael McDonald, president of Global Health Initiatives, a Washington DC-based global health systems organization, applauded the effort to vaccinate more children. But he said that the report oversimplifies the challenges faced by the world’s poor by ignoring the effects of climate change and the global financial crisis — both of which are leading to food shortages and other hardships that are killing more children than the lack of vaccines — and questioned whether throwing an additional $1 billion at the problem provided the best bang for the buck. “Everything was put in the best light,” McDonald told Nature. “It has to be put in balance.”
Helen Evans, deputy chief executive officer of the GAVI Alliance, a global health partnership between the private and public sectors and the largest global funder of immunization programmes, defended the call for additional vaccine funding as a good investment. “Health’s a development driver — it actually shapes development and poverty reduction,” she said. “If you lose ground, it’s actually much costlier to go backwards.”
Image: USAID / Wikimedia Commons