Symposium announces great strides in childhood immunization

Yet challenges still remain to combat deadly diseases in the developing world

BARCELONA, SPAIN (24 April 2008) –Top vaccine experts and child advocates meeting in Barcelona today hailed dramatic new evidence of the role of immunisation in reducing deaths among children in the world’s poorest nations.

“Each day, more and more children are being given life-saving vaccines. With higher immunisation rates, fewer of them are now dying of preventable infectious diseases,” said Graça Machel, President of the Foundation for Community Development (FDC) for Mozambique.

Sponsored by the GAVI Alliance, Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), and “la Caixa” Foundation, the event brought together high-level policy makers, researchers, and funders to announce progress to date in childhood immunisation and options for overcoming the financial, logistical, and technical barriers that hinder steps forward.

Participants at the conference, entitled “Advancing Immunization in Developing Countries: New horizons in children’s health,” called for continued support for delivering life-saving vaccines to the developing world. They noted that immunisation rates serve among the most promising trends for reducing childhood mortality and achieving Millennium Development Goal 4, which aims at reducing by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.

Projections from the World Health Organisation show that since its inception in 2000, through to 2007, GAVI support has prevented 2.9 million future deaths, protected 36.8 million additional children with basic vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, and protected 176 million additional children with new and underused vaccines.

Thanks to support from GAVI and its partners, measles' deaths have been slashed across Africa by more than 90 percent since 2000, and 158.6 million children have been immunised against hepatitis B. Recent successes reported in Uganda, The Gambia and Kenya show that introducing the Hib vaccine in those countries has – within five years – prevented thousands of child deaths and virtually eliminated this deadly and painful cause of meningitis.

The Secretary of State for International Co-operation, Ms. Leire Pajín, stressed the firm commitment of Spain with international efforts to improve health, medical services and vaccination in developing countries, noting “the fundamental right of every child, woman and man to decent, comprehensive and qualified health services, wherever they live. As the 7th bilateral donor in the world, Spain has made substantial contributions to global initiatives: among others, supporting GAVI with more than EURO 189 million for 20 years. The Spanish government is also especially satisfied in supporting innovative collaboration schemes to strengthen research capacities in developing centres such as the Manhiça Health Research Centre in Mozambique that has carried out the pivotal clinical trials of the most advanced malaria vaccine candidate.”