The power of vaccines

Source: WEF blog/Seth Berkley

As CEO of the GAVI Alliance, I am coming to Davos to talk about the challenges and opportunities of public-private partnerships, with an emphasis on innovative financing. The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is the perfect place for a dialogue that brings together industry, civil society, UN agencies and countries around a shared response to the challenge of protecting children against vaccine preventable illness.

Stick with the science

Source: New York Times/Seth Berkley

Government representatives are meeting in Geneva this week to decide whether to introduce a global ban on mercury that could include thiomersal, a mercury-based preservative that is used to prevent bacterial or fungal contamination of multidose vials of vaccine. Hosted by the UNEP, the committee is charged with drafting a global treaty to rid the world of the threats posed by mercury. Despite the ominous connotations of mercury, the decision should in theory be a no-brainer: The scientific and medical consensus is that thiomersal poses no human health risk, and that rather than saving lives, a ban would put millions of the world’s poorest children at risk of deadly diseases by disrupting vaccination programs. In 2010 alone it is estimated that more than 1.4 million child deaths were prevented through the use of thiomersal-containing vaccines. Little wonder that organizations such as the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Institute of Medicine and the GAVI Alliance oppose a ban.

The case for childhood rotavirus vaccines

Source: Impatient Optimists

Vaccination offers the best hope for protecting children from rotavirus and is an essential part of comprehensive diarrhea control. The evidence is compelling and the data are powerful. Countries that have introduced these vaccines have seen major reductions in hospitalizations and deaths from diarrhea. Over the next few decades, millions of unnecessary illnesses and deaths can be prevented by accelerating access.

What two years without polio mean for India

Source: Wall Street Journal

On Jan. 13, 2013 India completed two years since the last case of the crippling disease was reported. This is a huge achievement for a country that as recently as 2009 reported 741 cases of polio – more than any other country in the world, and almost half of cases reported globally that year.

HPV vaccine gains favour in sub-Saharan Africa

Source: Maclean's

In Africa, unlike the U.S., the HPV vaccine has been embraced by politicians and high-profile celebrities, including the first ladies of Tanzania and Zambia and the popular Tanzanian MTV host Vanessa Mdee. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in that country. In contrast, cervical cancer rarely kills in Canada.

PATH and Inovio partner on malaria vaccine, delivery technology

Source: UPI

US researchers say a DNA based vaccine could induce an immune response in humans to protect against malaria. The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. aim to develope malaria vaccines with an innovative delivery technology called electroporation. Electroporation uses electrical impulses to create temporary pores in a cell membrane, allowing uptake of the synthetic DNA that then causes the cell to produce proteins mimicking the presence of the malaria pathogen.

Mobile phones could revolutionise healthcare in Africa

Source: IPS

A nurse uses the phone to schedule appointments, access patient records and order new vaccines when stock runs low. It is – for now – a theoretical scenario on how mobile technology can help improve childhood immunisation in sub-Saharan Africa. But it will soon become a reality in Mozambique, which has teamed up with the GAVI Alliance to launch a pilot project in about 100 clinics in early 2013. “Mobile technology will help us identify children who until now have been missed and make sure they get a full set of vaccinations,” GAVI CEO Seth Berkley tells IPS.

Innovation to fund global health

Source: The Hill

Millions of lives are saved today in developing countries because of bold, innovative financing arrangements over last 10 years. These financing initiatives have pooled large public sector funding with private sector resources, thus allowing tax payers funds to have much larger impact than would otherwise be possible. GAVI has immunized 296 millions children in 74 countries and committed $7.2 billions to immunize an additional 245 million children by 2016. By increasing demand, pooling global requirements, and making additional resources available, GAVI has helped reduce prices of vaccines and brought in more producers in the market place.

Power of vaccines almost equal to primary education

Source: Vaccines Today

Vaccines can help keep children healthy and protect families in the developing world from slipping into poverty, according to Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership focused on saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.

Scientists say therapeutic vaccine temporarily brakes HIV

Source: AFP

A team of Spanish researchers say they have developed a therapeutic vaccine that can temporarily brake growth of the HIV virus in infected patients. The vaccine lost its effectiveness after a year, when the patients had to return to their regular combination therapy of anti-retroviral drugs. Researchers said the results were similar to those achieved with a single anti-retroviral drug, used to block the growth of HIV.