$4 billion on vaccines

Donors today pledged more than $4 billion to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) to help protect millions of children from diseases such as measles, pneumonia and yellow fever.

At a conference held today in London, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain will contribute £814 million ($1,3 billion) by 2015. Australia announced yesterday that it would pledge $211 million to the institution, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation declared it would donate more than $1 billion to the cause.

GAVI is a coalition of organizations such as the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and major vaccine manufacturers, among others. The group buys vaccines for the world's poorest countries and estimates that around 2 million children die each year from diseases that could be prevented with just one vaccine.

"Today is an important day for our collective commitment to protecting children in developing countries," said Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a statement.

Daniel Berman, a vaccine specialist with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said it was exciting to see so much money pledged and so many lives potentially saved. But he questioned whether the taxpayer millions would be spent wisely.

Executives from major vaccine companies sit on GAVI's boards and influence its purchasing policies. GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer each receive a subsidy of $225 million to produce pneumonia vaccines – purchased by GAVI for $3,50 per dose.

Subsidies are used to convince manufacturers to produce injections that are not normally profitable. But, in 2008, Pfizer's report tallied approximately US$3 billion in vaccine sales. "Why do we give money to big pharmaceutical companies?" Berman questioned. "This only highlights the conflict of interest and corporate profits over us."

Health authorities expect to vaccinate more than 250 million children, saving approximately 4 million lives in the coming years. "For the first time in history, children in developing countries will receive the same vaccines against diarrhea and pneumonia as those in wealthy countries," said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, in a statement. "Together we can do more to ensure that all children – no matter where they live – have equal access to life-saving vaccines."

Research has already been conducted on whether the vaccines purchased by GAVI actually reach the children who need them. Several years ago, a study published in the specialized journal The Lancet showed that developing countries exaggerated the data on how many children were vaccinated against deadly diseases, thus allowing them to receive more money from GAVI. Researchers stated that only half of the children announced by the countries were immunized. Other experts warned that more money would not solve the problem and that donating vaccines to countries with failing health systems could mean that they end up stuck in warehouses.

"We have to be aware that investing in vaccines is not a magic bullet for health problems like pneumonia and diarrhea," said Sophie Harman, a public health expert at City University London. "Without a commitment to adequate funding for health infrastructure (...), any investment in vaccines will be redundant."