Health officials to roll-out cheap meningitis A jab across sub-Saharan
Africa next month
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Wednesday November 24 2010
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/23/30p-meningitis-vaccine-millions-africa
Meningitis epidemics that rage across Africa every year, killing
thousands, may be brought to an end by a new vaccine designed and
manufactured to cost only a small fraction of the prices charged by
big pharma.
The meningitis A vaccine will be launched on 6 December in Burkina
Faso, which aims to vaccinate every person between one and 29 before
the annual epidemic hits the meningitis belt from mid-January to mid-
April.
The epidemic sweeps across 25 countries from Senegal in the west to
Somalia in the east. The worst occurred in 1997, affecting 250,000 and
killing 25,000. Children and young adults are most at risk.
The vaccine is revolutionary because it has been developed without the
help of the giant pharmaceutical companies and is aimed at the needs ?
and wallets ? of an African population. It will cost just 50 cents a
dose (about 30p).
It has come about through a collaboration between the World Health
Organisation, which saw the urgency of the need after the 1997
epidemic, and Path, a nonprofit organisation based in Seattle that
looks for technological solutions to global health problems.
Major pharmaceutical companies were approached for help but were too
expensive. Path recruited the Serum Institute of India because it
could deliver the vaccine at an affordable price.
The cost of developing the vaccine, MenAfriVac, was about $50m (?31m),
said Dr Marc LaForce from Path, leading the project. It was paid for
by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "That's about one-tenth of
what is usually described as the cost of developing a new vaccine," he
said.
Cost is a matter of arithmetic, he added. "Price is a strategy; there
doesn't have to be a relationship between the cost of goods and
price."
Dr Jean-Marie Okwo-Bele, at the World Health Organisation, said the
introduction of an affordable vaccine against meningitis A in Africa
"is truly a huge accomplishment in public health. This will affect the
lives of 450 million people who are at risk of this disease in the
meningitis belt."
In an ordinary year, there are 50,000 cases of meningitis, which can
cause deafness and mental retardation, and 5,000 deaths. "It is a
dreadful disease," said Okwo-Bele, who saw it in his own country, the
Democratic Republic of Congo. "Travelling in the villages that were
affected, you could feel the fear in the populations. You could see
empty streets because people are so afraid to be in contact with each
other."
The trials show the vaccine is more than 98% effective and protection
is expected to last for 10 to 15 years. If it were to be rolled out to
at least 70% of the population in all 25 countries, it could eradicate
meningitis epidemics.
There is excitement not only over the potential of the vaccine against
meningitis A but also the possibility that other vaccines for
impoverished populations hard-hit by disease could be developed
effectively and cheaply.
Until now, the developing world has had to wait for major
pharmaceutical companies to develop sophisticated vaccines that also
have a use in the affluent world, and the donor community has had to
pay substantial sums of money to subsidise the research and
development.
Vaccines for pneumococcal disease and for rotavirus (a major cause of
diarrhoeal disease), which are the two biggest killers of children,
have been developed by companies including GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer
after an Advance Market Commitment by donor countries to pay. The
price per dose, even after the subsidy, of the pneumococcal vaccine is
$3.50 ? several times the price of MenAfriVac.
The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), which
channels donor money into vaccine programmes, is trying to raise
sufficient money for the more expensive pneumococcal and rotavirus
programmes.
It is providing $30m for the MenAfriVac roll-out in three countries ?
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger ? and $55m to help control outbreaks, but
has not committed to the $370m (plus $150m from the affected
countries) needed to immunise the entire meningitis belt. Gavi is
struggling to raise the money it needs from international donors to
fund its programmes.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010
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