Julian Lob-Levyt, executive secretary of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and CEO of the Vaccine Fund, and Ciro de Quadros, director of international programs at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, write in the Philadelphia Inquirer (free registration) on the 50th anniversary of the polio vaccine.They compare the progress in the US - where a child has a 99% chance of reaching his or her fifth birthday - with other countries in which children face terrible odds. One in five children born in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, will die before age five.
It doesn't have to be this way. Childhood immunization is the best value in health care. A child can be immunized fully for only $30. Governments around the world, including the United States, are mobilizing political will and additional resources in support of immunization efforts and increasingly are reaching those most in need. ...Much further suffering can be prevented, and many lives saved, if we redouble our efforts to provide health care, particularly immunization, to children around the world. In the United States, polio is a part of our history, a reminder of a day when parents had few tools to protect their children from infectious disease. That fear is now behind us, but too many of the world's parents still live with it. We have the tools to help them - let us keep building the political will.
