Science and philanthropy help make strides in combating rotavirus
This article was written for Media Global by Rebekah Mintzer.
Media Global, 4 February 2010 – Rotavirus is a curable diarrheal disease that occurs in infants and young children all over the world, but due to lack of adequate treatment it is often fatal in the world’s poorest countries.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 500,000 child deaths and 2 million hospitalizations per year can be attributed to rotavirus, 85 percent of which occur in developing nations in Africa and Asia.
However, the release of a new study chronicling the successful testing of a safe rotavirus vaccine, combined with a $10 billion donation over 10 years announced by the Gates Foundation at the World Economic Forum last week, may help stop rotavirus from claiming so many young lives.
“Pneumonia and diarrheal diseases are, respectively, the number one and number two leading killers of children under 5 — in absolute terms. Of the many causes of diarrhea, rotavirus is the number one cause in small children,” Jeffrey Rowland, Director of Media and Communications for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) told Media Global.
GAVI is a group dedicated to funding immunization for children in developing nations, and helped fund the recent rotavirus study.
The symptoms of rotavirus — diarrhea, vomiting and fever — have a dehydrating effect on patients, and without adequate medical care, dehydration will lead to death. Vaccination against rotavirus using Rotarix has been proven effective in many developed countries but required additional testing among the more impoverished and malnourished populations of the developing countries in Africa and Asia.
Children in developing countries may lack nutritional and immune system strength and may have different existing levels of antibodies, as well as different immunization timetables from children in developed nations. These factors spur a demand for additional testing in developing areas of the globe before vaccine efficacy and safety can be determined universally.
The study, published in the 28 January edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, provided proof that the Rotarix vaccine works on infants in sub-Saharan Africa. Infants inoculated with Rotarix in Malawi and South Africa experienced a vaccine efficacy rate of over 60 percent.
The data collected compelled the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunizations to recommend that the Rotarix vaccine be included in national immunization programs.
“With this encouraging milestone, rotavirus vaccines are a tremendous addition to solutions for addressing the lethal causes of diarrhea and should be part of a coordinated approach that combines proven prevention and treatment methods,” John Wecker, Director of Vaccine Access and Delivery for PATH told Media Global .
“The global community must act immediately to stop needless child deaths. We have the solutions in hand; now we need political will, donor commitments, and country-specific action plans to get available rotavirus vaccines where they are needed most.”
The $10 billion promised by the Gates Foundation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland would be a step forward for getting rotavirus vaccines to those who need them the most. Along with pneumonia and malaria, the Gates Foundation intends to target rotavirus in its vaccination campaign, with the goal of scaling vaccine coverage up to 90 percent in some of the world’s poorest developing countries.
One model indicates that the Gates Foundation’s “decade of vaccines” could save up to 7.6 million children under the age of five in the next ten years.
According to Rowland, countries have already begun to apply to GAVI to receive the rotavirus vaccine, and though it is impossible to predict exactly how many countries will request the vaccine, the organization has estimated that 44 countries will ask for the vaccine program to be implemented within their borders in the next five years.
“The announcement of new funding for vaccines by the Gates Foundation – although not specific to GAVI – is hugely welcomed. We hope that it will spur other donors to sustain and increase their support too,” Rowland told MediaGlobal.
“Frankly, for the first time in history, the vaccine technology and supply exist and the demand for the vaccines by countries is there. All that is needed is the funding. There really is no excuse not to vaccinate all poor children against rotavirus.”
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