Africa, Development & Aid, Headlines, Health, Poverty & SDGs

AFRICA: Pneumonia Vaccine Rollout Will Protect Millions

Miriam Gathigah

NAIROBI, Mar 14 2011 (IPS) - The Kenyatta International Conference Centre resembled one big nursery with parents and their crying babies. Hundreds of parents with their infants thronged the Centre where they received their first shot against pneumonia, and not even their tears as the shot broke through their skin could dampen the smiling faces of their mothers.

The mothers waited patiently for their infants’ turn to be vaccinated as the painful shot represents a chance to survive a disease that many children have not been lucky to withstand.

“We’ve started the global rollout of these (pneumonia) vaccines that will save thousands of children’s lives. It is a very exciting day,” said Helen Evans, interim CEO of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI).

Pneumonia is an inflammation of one or both lungs and is often due to a bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitic infection. Common symptoms include fever, shortness in breath, chills and coughing.

Pneumonia has continued to be a major public health issue in Kenya, with the World Health Organization reporting that it is the country’s second leading killer among children, after malaria.

Vaccine too costly for most

The vaccine, already available in various private hospitals, has remained out of reach for many children. A full dose costs about 188 dollars, which for the many Kenyans living on less than a dollar a day is too expensive.

Government figures reveal that an estimated 30,000 children die annually from pneumonia.

“We are delighted that our children will be vaccinated for free. I am happy with what the government has done today by helping us keep our children healthy. I cannot afford to pay for it seeing that on a good day I only earn three dollars washing clothes in people’s homes,” explained an elated Belinda Otieno, a mother of two sets of twins below the age of six.

Despite the fact that new vaccine trials were carried out at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) for over a decade, the drug has remained inaccessible to thousands of children.

This has seen health experts continue to cry foul over what they saw as Kenyan children being used as guinea pigs for a crucial life-saving drug off-limits to them until now.

“We will provide this life-saving vaccine free of charge to every child less than one year old in public health facilities,” said President Mwai Kibaki during the launch.

This pledge is literally a breath of life for many children, particularly among the poor, who constitute a significant percentage of the populace.

The significance of this commitment cannot be over-emphasised seeing that it comes after a long struggle by the government to subsidise the cost of the vaccine.

In 2009, the government clashed with an American drug manufacturer over inhibitive costs. The manufacturers subsequently offered to give Kenya a one-time dose, an offer that the government refused because the country was looking for a sustainable solution.

This has now become available to the country through GAVI’s commitment to support the introduction of the new pneumonia vaccines in 19 developing countries within a year.

Although dependent on the availability of funds, GAVI, an alliance of private-public partnerships geared towards saving children’s lives by facilitating access to vaccines in poor countries, plans to roll them (vaccines) out to more than 40 countries by 2015.

Making vaccine available to a million more

Kenya is currently the first African country to roll out what in medical circles is referred to as “pneumococcal vaccine”. Within the year, children in other poor countries such as Nicaragua, Mali, Yemen and Sierra Leone will also have access to the vaccine.

With the help of this vaccine, Beth Mugo, Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, emphasised that “cutting down morbidity and mortality from pneumonia will save families the emotional and financial stress of having a sick child, the heartache of losing a child in death and will also enable the government to channel the cost of treatment towards productive economic activities.”

The pain of losing a child to pneumonia is one that Hannah Kaigai knows all too well, “My boy caught pneumonia when he was seven months old. From then on his health was never the same. He was always cold, even during very hot weather and he passed on aged three.”

There are many mothers in the country who can relate similarly painful experiences of having lost a child to pneumonia. However, many more will be saved the heartache if they take their infants to hospitals for the vaccine.

According to GAVI, the vaccine has prevented an estimated five million deaths since it was created in 2000.

The government is therefore optimistic that pneumonia will cease to be a leading cause of death and has predicted that the vaccine will prevent an estimated seven million deaths by 2030.