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Davos forum launches

child immunisation drive

DAVOS: A global alliance of business leaders, philanthropic foundations, development banks, UN agencies and national governments on Monday urged the world's economic powerbrokers to view children as the key to sustainable human development.

Millions of young lives could be saved each year through an ambitious new campaign to immunize all the world's children, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) said here.

The GAVI officially launched the vaccination campaign Monday at the World Economic Forum.

Calling the campaign, "The Children's Challenge," the members of GAVI argued that children have a right to good health and that protecting the world's children against preventable diseases was not only a moral, imperative but an essential cornerstone of a healthy, stable world society.

"Business governments and philanthropists should work together to provide the life-saving vaccines that we take for granted to children around the world," Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said.

Late last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation paved the way for the launch of the Children's Challenge by donating US$750 million over five years to establish the Global Fund for Children's Vaccines.

The Fund is one of the financial tools GAVI will use to save children's lives through improved immunization.

GAVI is seeking additional large donations from the public and private sector. US Vice President, Al Gore recently announced plans to ask Congress for US$50 million to support the objectives of the Children's Challenge.

"Nearly three million children worldwide still die needlessly each year of vaccine-preventable illness," said Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director General of the World Health Organisation and the chair of GAVI.

For only $17 per child, we can provide lifetime protection against the six historical scourageÊÑ polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis pertussis, measles and tatanus.

And for not much more, we can extend the protection to include hepatitis B, yellow fever and Haemophilus influenza type B, the leading cause of pneumonia and meningitis.

In lauching the Children's Challenge, the GAVI partners outlined three emain inequities that need to be addressed in order to achieve the goal of universal immunizations.

These are: the 30 million children born every year in poor countries who are still not receiving the 'basic six' immunization; the growing disparities in the number of vaccines available to children in industrialised and developing countries; and the lack of investment in vaccine research and development for diseases that are prevalent in poorer countries, particularly HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

Business leaders and those of the governments, attending the Conference emphasised the numerous positive consequences of the GAVI initiative.ÑAPP