Interactive guide to Rwanda’s historic roll-out of pneumococcal vaccine

RWANDAFAST TRACKAFFORDABLE VACCINESPARTNERSHIP

Immunisation against pneumococcal diseases is now a fixture on Rwandan childrens' vaccine cards. Copyright: GAVI/09/Thomas Rippe

On average, 12-15 years pass between the introduction of new vaccines and their implementation in the developing world. Rwanda’s access to the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) Prevenar, less than 10 years after its introduction in the United States, signals a new era in accelerating the delivery of ground-breaking vaccinations to the developing world.

Already 12 of 72 eligible countries have applied and been approved by the GAVI Alliance to receive assistance in introducing PCV into their national immunisation programmes over the next year.

The same Wyeth donation of more than three million doses of Prevenar to GAVI, currently being rolled out in Rwanda, will also help the Gambia protect its children against pneumococcal diseases.

Accelerating poor countries’ access to vaccines against two of the world’s biggest, yet most overlooked, child killers - pneumococcal disease and rotavirus (see inset) - will fast-track progress towards meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4: to reduce childhood deaths by two-thirds by 2015.

It is estimated that routine vaccination against pneumococcal disease and rotavirus could prevent more than 11 million child deaths by 2030.

Pneumococcal disease is the leading vaccine-preventable killer of children under age five worldwide; children in the developing world bear 90 percent of pneumococcal deaths worldwide. For example, pneumonia, caused by pneumococcal bacteria, kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.

Rotavirus, the most deadly form of diarrhea, kills more than half a million children each year and hospitalises millions more.