Vaccine Access

Vaccines offer the most cost effective and equitable health interventions known to man. Vaccines save millions of lives, mostly infants and children, from several dreaded diseases which cause mortality and morbidity. Thanks to vaccines and systematic immunization, the dreaded small pox disease has been eradicated; and the polio disease is seeing its final death knell. It is estimated that vaccines avert about 2-3 million deaths each year in all age groups and protect 83% of infants worldwide from vaccine preventable diseases. Therefore, it would seem that the vaccine business should bethriving. This is only partly true. The vaccine business thrives in developed countries, but not in developing countries and least developed countries. This is on account of the fact that immunization of the world’s children, and to lesser extent adults, is bogged by a number of issues. The chief issue is about access to vaccines by the majority of the world’s population living in the developing and least developed countries. Access is limited, inter alia, due to limited money available for vaccine procurement, high prices of new vaccines for existing and emerging diseases and poor health delivery infrastructure in developing countries. Access to Vaccines and the Vaccine Industry - An Analysis: K V Balasubramaniam and Dr V. Sita

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Last date updated on September, 2024