Today at a ceremony in Rome presented a US$1.5-billion pilot fund that is expected to save the lives of 5.4 million children by 2030. An average three million children die of preventable diseases every year in the poorest regions of the world.
Five nations including Canada, Italy, Norway, Russia, and the United Kingdom along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are funding a US$1.5-billion program that targets pneumococcal disease, a major cause of pneumonia and meningitis. The programm is expected to save the lives of 5.4 million children by 2030.
The program, known as the Advance Market Commitment, will phase out its funding after seven to 10 years, and vaccine manufacturers will be required to continue selling their products to developing countries at the discounted price that was established during the process. The fund will be managed by the World Bank.
The AMC pilot will test a new model to encourage development of vaccines, specifically those that prevent disease strains prevalent in Third World countries.
Speaking at the launch of the AMC, the World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said: "The key aim is to accelerate the production of viable and urgently needed vaccines for the poorest countries where thousands of children die every day from diseases that can be prevented."
"With the launch of the first AMC, we can save lives, and we will do it with the investment and expertise of industry,"he added.
The value of commitments made today are:
- Britain - $485 million
- Italy - $635 million
- Canada - $200 million
- Russia - $80 million
- Norway - $50 million
- Gates Foundation - $50 million
Offered by a government or other financial entities, an advance market commitment (AMC) is a binding contract, typically used to guarantee a viable market if a vaccine or other medicine is successfully developed.
The immunization program announced today will be managed by the GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) - public-private partnership focused on increasing children's access to vaccines in poor countries.
Partners include the GAVI Fund, national governments, UNICEF, WHO, The World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the vaccine industry, public health institutions and NGOs.
Pneumococcus is a bacterium that causes meningitis, pneumonia, and ear infections. It kills 1.6 million people every year, including a million children under the age of five, according to WHO. In clinical trials, GSK's vaccine candidate appears to be effective against pneumococcal diseases with greatest incidence in the developing world. It is expected that further studies will confirm the protection potential of GSK's vaccine candidate against acute otitis media caused by non-typable Haemophilus influenzae. GSK expects to file its vaccine to regulatory authorities by end 2007.
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