A new report by Research!America finds that total public and private U.S. investment in the health needs of developing nations was $9.5 billion in 2003. Industry provided more than half the total ($5.5bn), then NIH ($3.5 billion), with the remainder coming from private foundations.
The full report calls for more systematic collection of data on health research.
Global pharma giant Merck & Co., Inc on Thursday said it has tied-up with non-profit organisation PATH to conduct clinical studies of Merck's investigational rotavirus vaccine, ROTATEQ, in Asia and Africa.
The clinical trial sites will be identified in the next six months, with a goal of starting at least one trial by the end of 2006, the company said in a release.
Ten million additional lives could be saved through child and maternal immunization between 2006-2015 at an average annual cost of US $1 billion, according to a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
Julian Lob-Levyt, GAVI executive secretary, said:
"Of the $35 billion needed for the 72 poorest countries in the next decade, there is a $10-15 billion funding shortfall if we are to achieve the goal of saving 10 million more lives"
Click below to see the press release.
An article in the Monroe Street Journal looks at US policy on incentives to develop vaccines:
Policy makers are now trying to use market mechanisms to stimulate the research and development of vaccines to stop major killers in the developing world, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. On September 14, 2005, Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) proposed bill S.1698, the "Vaccines for a New Millennium Act of 2005" on the Senate floor.
In light of the third GAVI Partners' Meeting in Delhi (opened by the Indian Prime Minister and attended by Bill Gates), the FT ran a brief article on the global immunization architecture yesterday that touches upon many of the current issues in the vaccine world in general and GAVI in particular. Innovative financing remains at the top of the Alliance's agenda, according to FT:
Historian Bill Muraskin has published a new book entitled Crusade to Immunize the World's Children: The Origins of the Bill and Melinda Gates Children's Vaccine Program and the Birth of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, with a foreword by Roy Widdus.
Historian Bill Muraskin has published a new book entitled Crusade to Immunize the World's Children: The Origins of the Bill and Melinda Gates Children's Vaccine Program and the Birth of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, with a foreword by Roy Widdus.
The G7 Finance Ministers announced today that they would work with others on developing a pilot Advance Market Commitment for a vaccine next year.
The finance ministers met in London this weekend to consider a report from Italian Finance Minister Guilio Tremonti. This report recommended that the G-7 adopt a plan that is based on proposals made in April by the Working Group convened by the Center for Global Development (CGD), in the report Making Markets for Vaccines.
December 1st is World AIDS Day.
UNAIDS is reinforcing the message this year about the importance of strengthening HIV prevention, even as we expand urgently-needed AIDS treatment programs. Wider use of existing prevention methods and development of new and more effective tools such as vaccines and microbicides are critical if we are to save millions of lives from the pandemic in the coming years.
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) has published three paper:
Michael Kremer is interviewed in the current issue of Newsweek:
Are there any precedents for your approach?
Yes, in the U.K. in 1994 there was an outbreak of a bacterial infection causing brain swelling. The government said that if a treatment were produced, they’d buy it. It was, they did, and cases of infection went down by 90 percent.