Health Experts Appeal For Vaccines To Be Added To National Immunization Programs

Main Category: Immune System / Vaccines
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 31 Aug 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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During a recent three-day Asian Vaccine Conference, health experts appealed to countries to add "under-utilised vaccines such as those of pneumococcal, haemophilus influenzae type-b (Hib), and rotavirus" into national immunization programs, the Nation reports.

"Every child needs to be protected and it's their right (to be vaccinated)," Lulu Bravo, chairwoman of the Asian Strategic Alliance for Pneumococcal Disease Prevention, said. She added that the policy would be consistent with the aim of a two-thirds reduction in child mortality by 2015 under the Millennium Development Goals, according to the Nation.

So far, 39 of 92 countries where the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine is sold have added it to their national immunization programs. The result of the vaccine being added to the U.S. national immunization program for children under age five in 2000 reduced the number of children infected from 80 per 100,000 to 4.6 in 2003, the Nation reports. Hong Kong will become the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to add the vaccine as part of its national immunization program, beginning in September.

"Vaccines cannot be considered as 'costs' but 'investments' to create quality children for a country's future," Bravo said (Boonroj, 8/28).

This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

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