healthmedicinet

Affordable, safe, effective vaccine safeguarding immature people from harmful disease

News release

3 Dec 2012 | Geneva –
A insubordinate meningitis vaccine will strech a 100 millionth chairman this week in a segment of Africa that has been tormented by lethal epidemics for some-more than a century. The miracle will take place in northern Nigeria, partial of Africa’s ‘meningitis belt’, where a nation is conducting a second anniversary immunization debate opposite a disease.

The ancestral feat comes dual years after a MenAfriVac® vaccine was initial launched in Burkina Faso. Since then, 9 other countries have hold vaccination campaigns to strengthen people from ages 1 to 29 opposite meningitis A.

Nigeria will immunize 16 million people over a subsequent dual weeks and Cameroon and Chad are also conducting immunization campaigns this week targeting 5.5 million and 2.3 million people respectively. By a finish of this year, a vaccine will have reached some-more than 112 million people, providing widespread and long-awaited protection.

GAVI Alliance Partners’ Forum

The feat will be famous during a GAVI Alliance Partners’ Forum, that is bringing together building countries, donors, polite society, technical and investigate institutes, health agencies and a vaccine attention this week in Dar es Salaam, a collateral of a United Republic of Tanzania.

“When we began building this vaccine, we knew how desperately it was needed, and we hoped it would fast yield service for a many people who dismay sub-Saharan Africa’s meningitis season,” pronounced Steve Davis, boss and CEO of PATH, that partnered with WHO to emanate MenAfriVac®. “We are so unapproachable to see African countries fast welcome this vaccine and to see that lethal and debilitating meningitis cases have probably left in a regions that have been vaccinated.”

“This miracle has been achieved interjection to a joining of inhabitant governments and support from WHO and other partners,” pronounced Dr Flavia Bustreo, WHO Assistant Director-General for Family, Women and Children’s Health. “We contingency continue a efforts to exercise vaccination campaigns in a remaining meningitis belt countries and safeguard widespread uptake of a MenAfriVac vaccine.”

“Meningitis is a terrible illness that kills immature people, creates serious neurological repairs in many survivors, and devastates communities,” pronounced Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of a GAVI Alliance, that is providing appropriation for a vaccines being used in a campaigns. “It is zero brief of conspicuous that accurately dual years after a initial GAVI-funded meningitis vaccination debate in a meningitis belt, a 100 millionth will have their life protected.”

“The growth of MenAfriVac as a low-cost vaccine was critically critical for a tellurian health community,” pronounced Chris Elias, boss of Global Development during a Bill Melinda Gates Foundation. “Vaccines work to save and urge lives and a speed with that a governments in meningitis-affected countries have introduced this new vaccine to strengthen immature people is exemplary.”

“Meningitis A epidemics have influenced a lowest families in countries of a Sahel, in a misfortune cases murdering one third of a influenced community,” pronounced Geeta Rao Gupta, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. “But now campaigns are bringing wish to a bad families of formerly unreached communities, that are mobilizing their members around this safe, effective and affordable vaccine.”

Seasonal meningitis A epidemics in ‘meningitis belt’

Seasonal meningitis A epidemics bluster a lives of 450 million people vital in a ‘meningitis belt’, that stretches by 26 countries from Gambia in a west to Eritrea in a east. The illness causes a unpleasant inflammation of a backing around a mind and a spine that can kill people within 24 to 48 hours. Those who tarry mostly face serious training difficulties, deafness, or amputated limbs. Children and immature adults are many during risk.

In a largest-ever anniversary widespread in Africa’s history, in 1996-1997, meningitis A putrescent 250 000 people and killed 25 000. In 1997, African ministers of health appealed to WHO and other partners to find a durability resolution to a awful disease.

Meningitis Vaccine Project formed

In 2001, PATH and WHO shaped a Meningitis Vaccine Project to rise a vaccine that would tackle a meningococcus aria that causes meningitis A during a cost that African countries could afford. Historically, new vaccines have possibly not been designed to cover variants of diseases found in building countries or have been too costly for building countries to embody in their immunization schedules. The partners worked with a Serum Institute of India Ltd. to rise and make a vaccine during a cost of reduction than US$0.50 per dose.

MenAfriVac® has reduced cases of meningitis A

The vaccine has already significantly reduced a weight of meningitis in a regions where it has been introduced. In Burkina Faso, that launched a initial MenAfriVac® debate in Dec 2010, there were no cases of meningitis A among those who were vaccinated.

“This vaccine is carrying a extensive impact on a lives of people in some of a world’s many exposed towns and villages,” Berkley said. “The partners concerned in building this vaccine merit extensive credit for ensuring a right vaccine is accessible during a right price.”

On Oct 31, 2012, MenAfriVac® perceived capitulation to be kept outward a cold sequence for adult to 4 days during adult to 40°C, in a tranquil heat sequence (CTC). MenAfriVac® is a initial vaccine dictated for use in Africa authorized for this form of use, potentially environment a regulatory trail that other heat-stable vaccines can follow.

Cold sequence stipulations have acted logistical hurdles for MenAfriVac® and other vaccine programmes, augmenting programme costs, loitering roll-outs, tying entrance to “last mile” communities and permitting outbreaks to continue. Benin launched a commander plan regulating a new CTC proceed during a roll-out of a vaccine from 15–25 Nov 2012.

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan, have all conducted campaigns with a MenAfriVac® vaccine given a introduction in 2010.

About GAVI

The GAVI Alliance is a public-private partnership committed to saving children’s lives and safeguarding people’s health by augmenting entrance to immunisation in building countries. The Alliance brings together building nation and donor governments, a World Health Organization, UNICEF, a World Bank, a vaccine industry, technical agencies, polite society, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists. GAVI uses innovative financial mechanisms, including co-financing by target countries, to secure tolerable appropriation and adequate supply of peculiarity vaccines. Since 2000, GAVI has financed a immunisation of an additional 370 million children and prevented some-more than 5.5 million beforehand deaths.

GAVI is saved by governments (Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States), a European Commission, a Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, as good as private and corporate partners (Absolute Return for Kids, Anglo American plc, The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Comic Relief, His Highness Sheikh Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, JP Morgan, “la Caixa” Foundation, LDS Charities).

About a World Health Organization

WHO is a directing and coordinating management for health within a United Nations system. It is obliged for providing care on tellurian health matters, moulding a health investigate agenda, environment norms and standards, articulating evidence-based process options, improving tellurian health security, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

About PATH

PATH is an general nonprofit classification that transforms tellurian health by innovation. PATH takes an entrepreneurial proceed to building and delivering high-impact, low-cost solutions, from lifesaving vaccines, drugs, and inclination to collaborative programs with communities. Through a work in some-more than 70 countries, PATH and a partners commission people to grasp their full potential.

About UNICEF

UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to assistance children tarry and thrive, from early childhood by adolescence. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for building countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good H2O and sanitation, peculiarity simple preparation for all boys and girls, and a insurance of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is saved wholly by a intentional contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

For some-more information greatfully contact:

Rob Kelly
Senior Manager, Media and Communications
GAVI ALLIANCE
Telephone: +41 22 909 29 78
Mobile: +41 79 745 20 31
E-mail: [email protected]

Kate Donavon
Deputy Chief, Media Relations
Ninth Floor
Three UN Plaza
New York, NY 10017
Telephone: + 1 212 326 7452
Mobile: + 1 917 378 2128
E-mail: [email protected]

Fadéla Chaib
Communications Officer/WHO Spokesperson
Department of Communications
WHO, Geneva
Telephone: +41 22 791 32 28
Mobile: +41 79 475 55 56
E-mail: [email protected]

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