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Deep Discounts for Vaccines in Low-Income Nations

June 7th, 2011

Drug manufacturers are stepping up to the plate in the race to provide low-cost vaccines to low-income nations in a global effort to sustain supply and allow greater accessibility to life-saving drugs at low-threshold prices.  Diarrhoea, caused by rotavirus, is the second leading cause of high children under 5 mortality rates, killing more than half a million children each year.  Vaccines like Rotatrix that work to immunize children from rotavirus are now being offered to GAVI by GSK at up to 67% off the current market price, reducing the cost of an immunizing dose to 5 bucks per child. 

In 2009, the WHO recommended that all countries should include rotavirus vaccines in national vaccination programs, but many poorer countries struggle to afford them.

GAVI, which funds bulk-buy vaccination programs for nations that can’t afford shots at Western prices, has committed to help fund rotavirus vaccine introduction in at least 40 of the world’s poorest countries by 2015.

However, funding is tight and there is a $3.7 billion gap that impedes on the longevity of this project through 2015. Thankfully,

[t]he price cuts, offered by both generic and branded drugmakers including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Johnson & Johnson’s Crucell and Sanofi-Aventis’ Sanofi Pasteur, should help the alliance narrow a $3.7 billion funding gap for its commitments up until 2015.

In addition to deep discounts on rotavirus vaccines, pentavalent vaccines which combine five different vaccines (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type b)  into one shot, are also on the list of drugs to be discounted in the near-term.

A great thing about this long term endeavor is that it encourages drug makers world wide to pump out vaccines, engendering integrated global pharmaceutical efforts to sustain supply to developing nations.  However, it is important that developing nations begin and continue to take the initiative in developing a stronger health system such that they can also develop life-saving vaccines and loosen their dependence on external resources.

Read the original article here.

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Posted in brain food, Global Development, NTDs, pharmaceuticals, Public Health, U.S Government, Vaccine Diplomacy

NTDs Surface in the U.S Health Landscape

April 29th, 2011

On Wednesday, Melissa Cevallos of Health Key wrote a piece focusing on the increased visibility of rare diseases in an international consortium of health professionals.

Rare diseases are likely to get more attention now that an international consortium of patient advocacy groups and research funders has vowed to deliver 200 new therapies by 2020. For people with these diseases, such attention must seem long overdue.

Cevallos highlights the disinclination of drug companies to develop drugs for unique, rare, and endemic diseases but that is slowly changing.  In March 2011, Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) re-introduced the Creating Hope Act of 2011 to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. The Act is co-sponsored by Senators Scott Brown (R-MA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Al Franken (D-MN) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA).  The Creating Hope Act of 2011 aims to incentivize drug companies to develop new drugs for rare tropical and pediatric diseases.  The act seeks to improve the priority review voucher program which issues prizes to developers for treatment of rare/neglected diseases.

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The prize is an incentive for companies to invest in new drugs and vaccines for neglected tropical diseases. A provision of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (HR 3580) awards a transferable “priority review voucher” to any company that obtains approval for a treatment for a neglected tropical disease. Sponsored by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Al Franken (D-MN) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), this provision adds to the market based incentives available for the development of new medicines for developing world diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and African sleeping sickness.

In moving forward, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have received grant money towards a research program geared towards developing drugs and curriculum for rare diseases called: NIH Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND).  This program plan to launch a series of projects in Fall 2011 however, TRND has currently launched a few pilot projects that give us a glimpse into the variety of rare diseases they will be digging into, one of which is considered one of the most common NTD–schistosomiasis.

Read the original article here.

Read about the current projects here.

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Posted in NIH, NTDs, pharmaceuticals, Public Health, Tropical Medicine, Vaccine Diplomacy

Carter Center Health Programs and Partners Celebrate Record Progress, 35.8 Million Treatments in Fight Against Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2010

March 30th, 2011

By The Carter Center

The Carter Center’s health programs enabled a record 35.8 million treatments in 2010 to protect against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in thousands of communities in some of the most remote and forgotten places in Africa and the Americas.

Since 1986, The Carter Center has been a leader in the control, elimination, and eradication of neglected diseases, working at the grassroots in partnership with ministries of health and low-resource communities to conduct health education and mass drug administration, and to develop health service infrastructure.  The Carter Center’s 10 health programs are data-driven and seek to help fill gaps in health care, looking for opportunities to eliminate or eradicate diseases wherever possible, and to control diseases that cannot be completely eliminated.  Center disease interventions currently address Guinea worm, river blindness, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, and malaria.

The Carter Center conducts rigorous annual peer reviews and evaluations in conjunction with ministries of health from 14 countries and other partner organizations.

“We don’t just rely on increased treatment numbers to tell us our efforts are working to improve health. The Carter Center uses evidence-based practices to carefully evaluate whether our interventions are significantly reducing the burden of disease,” said Dr. Donald Hopkins, vice president of the Carter Center’s Health Programs.

The 2010 statistics confirm dramatic improvements in public health achieved as a direct result of the Center’s disease efforts in partner countries.

2010 Achievements

» Read more: Carter Center Health Programs and Partners Celebrate Record Progress, 35.8 Million Treatments in Fight Against Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2010

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Posted in Global Development, Global Health, NTDs, Tropical Medicine, Vaccine Diplomacy

Sabin Vaccine Institute Convenes Global Colloquium on Sustainable Immunization Financing

March 28th, 2011

Representatives from 18 Nations Aim to Strengthen National Immunization Programs
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA, March 28–New life-saving vaccines will save millions more lives in developing countries, but the cost of immunizing a child exceeds the total per capita government spending on all health care in many developing nations. Sustainable vaccine financing increasingly represents a critical aspect of maintaining a stable vaccination program.

To help nations develop innovative financing solutions, the Sustainable Immunization Financing(SIF) program, of the Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin), today convened the first ever high-level meeting focused on sustainable immunization financing. Sabin’s first “Colloquium on Sustainable Immunization Financing” brings together over 75 delegates representing ministries of health and finance and parliaments in 18 African, Asian and Latin American countries. The colloquium takes place March 28-29, 2011, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

One of the most successful public health interventions ever, immunization has eradicated smallpox, lowered the global incidence of polio by 99% since 1988 and achieved dramatic reductions in a wide range of other diseases.

» Read more: Sabin Vaccine Institute Convenes Global Colloquium on Sustainable Immunization Financing

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Posted in Africa, Global Health, Vaccine Diplomacy

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