UNICEF calls for 'Coalition of Powerful' to Provide Worldwide
Vaccine Access
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New York, Oct 11 2004 2:00PM
With some 2 million children dying annually from vaccine-
preventable diseases, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
chief Carol Bellamy today called on the world's leaders to form
a "coalition of the powerful," to provide effective immunization
for the children who presently have no access to it.
"Industry, governments and community leaders have a moral obli-
gation and a vested interest in closing the gap between the
reached and unreached," she said in a keynote address to the
World Vaccine Congress in Lyons, France. "We've made progress
before, but much more needs to be done to end stubborn inequi-
ties that cost millions of children's lives."
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_23533.htm
Ms Bellamy pointed to the polio eradication effort as an example
of the global community's capacity to reach children in the most
remote places as well as those who are socially marginalized.
"The lesson here is: If we can come this close to eradicating
polio, there is no excuse for not ridding the world of killers
like measles, too."
The 70 per cent of children reached worldwide in 1990 with the
"basic six" vaccines against whooping cough, measles, diphthe-
ria, polio, tuberculosis and tetanus had not changed, she said.
The three-pronged approach of a Global Vision and Strategy for
Immunization jointly developed by
http://www.unicef.org/immunization/index.html UNICEF and the
UN World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/en/) aims
to reach more children with lower-cost, effective vaccines, to
link routine immunization to other health interventions and to
introduce advanced vaccines at affordable prices. Those could
include inoculations against rotavirus, human papilloma virus,
pneumococcal infection, dengue fever and even malaria, she said.
A global survey of child mortality UNICEF made public last week
showed that 98 countries are lagging behind in their efforts to
reach the globally agreed Millennium Development Goal of a two-
thirds reduction in child mortality by 2015, compared to 1990,
especially in countries plagued by conflict or HIV/AIDS where
immunization rates are generally low.
"It's clear that we have to learn some new tricks to reach the
goals the world has set for itself," Ms. Bellamy said. "The
strongest possible partnership between the private and public
sectors is a crucial first step, both in ensuring a steady, af-
fordable supply of vaccines and in making sure it reaches the
children who are hardest to reach. It's a double challenge."