Today in Lecce, Italy, several donors fulfilled their promise to commit $1.5 billion to fight pneumococcal disease, which includes pneumonia, and is one of the biggest killers of children in developing countries around the world. In 2007, Finance Ministers from Canada, Italy, Norway, Russia, and the UK, gathered in Rome with the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and WHO and pledged to adopt an innovative mechanism to finance vaccines for pneumococcal disease called Advance Market Commitments. Today that pledge became reality.

Every year, pneumococcal disease kills 1.6 million people, more than a million of whom are under five years of age. Pneumonia, the most common form of pneumococcal disease kills one in four children in developing countries, making it the primary cause of death among young children. A vaccine for these diseases could save millions of lives over the coming years.

A vaccine for pneumococcal disease has existed since 2000, and is already part of routine vaccinations for children in developed countries. However, there is not an affordable vaccine for developing countries. The AMC frontloads financing for the vaccine so that once it is available, it will cost developing countries $3.50 per dose instead of the $70 per dose it costs in developed countries. Over the past two years, the donors involved in the AMC have been working to finalize the legal, financial, and regulatory components of the project. Today, the AMC became fully operational.

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and panel member at the launch of ONE’s DATA Report yesterday, said “This innovative new model will mean faster access to vaccines for millions of children in poor countries. It’s a great example of how innovation and technology together can produce life-saving advances and make them available to people who need them around the world”.
For more information, read the press release from GAVI Alliance.

-Lisa Fleisher