vaccines
Check out this great news on rotavirus, courtesy of Candace Rosen at PATH (from PATH’s RotaFlash newsletter), which you all helped to support with your advocacy for GAVI last spring!
Diarrhea is the third biggest killer of children under five years of age in Zambia (40 per day; 15,000 each year), and rotavirus, the most common cause of severe and fatal diarrhea in young children, is responsible for nearly one-third of those deaths. As in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest rates of rotavirus mortality worldwide, rotavirus contributes heavily to the tremendous drain on the health and economic resources in Zambia:
Approximately 41 percent of young children hospitalized for severe diarrhea are infected with rotavirus.
An estimated 4,506 children under age five die from rotavirus diarrhea annually.
Vaccines are the best way to protect children in Zambia and the rest of the world from severe rotavirus diarrhea and the deadly dehydrating diarrhea that it causes.
(more…)
Rachel Glennerster, Executive Director of J-PAL, explains how an incentive as small as a bag of lentils can encourage parents to get their children immunized.
Photo credit: J-PAL South Asia
It is easy to get overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge of global poverty, but there are many quick and easy things that have been proven to work. Preventative health care, including childhood vaccinations, is particularly effective and has saved millions of lives. But millions of children are still not vaccinated, even where vaccines are free and available. Time to despair about deep-rooted cultural hostility to modern medicine? Actually, procrastination is probably just as big a culprit.
In rich countries, we are constantly nudged to do the right thing. My son was fully immunized only after I got a threatening letter saying he would be expelled from preschool unless I submitted proof of immunization by the end of the week. Did I fail to do it earlier because I was uncertain of the benefits of immunization? No, I have written a book on the subject. But I was busy, and I kept putting it off. It turns out, I have much in common with mothers in Rajasthan, India.
(more…)
A visit to the doctor for a shot here in the US may not be the most pleasant moment of your week, but if you think about it, we’re all pretty lucky to have the opportunity to have those injections in the first place -– and with no need to fear that they may not be safely delivered.
For much of the developing world, however, such fears are necessary. Each year, unsafe injections account for 230,000 new HIV transmissions, 21,000,000 new cases of hepatitis and a total of 1.3 million deaths, all staggering and – even more disturbingly — completely unnecessary.
(more…)
Dr. Clarisse Loe Loumou of GAVI’s Civil Society Organization Constituency makes a major announcement that will affect the health of millions of children around the globe.
During my years of practice in the largest pediatric hospital of Cameroon in Yaoundé, I remember that the 300 beds were rarely empty. I was in charge of the gastroenterology and paediatric nutrition ward, where 28 beds were occupied more than 90 percent of the time by infants who were dehydrated and suffering from severe diarrhea.
Our problem was not the diarrhea itself — its treatment protocols are well known; oral re-hydration salts, adequate re-nutrition, zinc supplementation, intravenous (IV) fluids for the most severe cases — but in making real the possibility of preventing severe diarrhea. It was and still is common for children in Cameroon and other parts of Africa who are suffering from severe diarrhea to die due to limited access to oral re-hydration salts, IVs, clean drinking water, or even the inability to reach a hospital in time.
(more…)
This is a guest blog by Dr. Amani Abdelmoniem Mustafa, manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunization for Sudan. Read the original version on the Global Health Council’s Blog 4 Global Health.
The first child in Sudan to be vaccinated against rotavirus drew a big crowd at Samir Health Center.
KHARTOUM, Sudan — The day that we were waiting for arrived. The children of Sudan have long suffered terrible, sometimes deadly, diarrhea caused by rotavirus. Fortunately, there is a vaccine that can save our children from so much suffering. After years of waiting, it was finally delivered to Sudan.
The first stop was the Khartoum International Airport. It was a great event.
The Martinair flight landed at 7:45 at night. The media with their cameras huddled in the non-permitted area where the flights land. They were accompanied by cars with generators to light up the runway. Those of us on Sudan’s Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) team crowded into the packed VIP hall. We had the challenging and exciting job of making sure this new vaccine travels the length and breadth of the country to reach all the children. At that moment, we wanted to be as close as possible to watch the vaccine coming to Sudan.
(more…)
We’ve blogged a lot over the last few months about the importance of childhood vaccines. But kids aren’t the only ones who need vaccinations to stay healthy, and this week the global health community celebrated a major milestone when Uganda announced that it had eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus through a vaccination campaign for women of childbearing age.
Tetanus is a potentially deadly infection that can occur if a baby’s umbilical cord is cut with an unclean tool or if a harmful substance such as ash or cow dung is applied to the cord, as is traditional practice in some African countries. When tetanus develops, child death rates are extremely high, especially in countries where health systems are not strong and access to more advanced medical treatment can be difficult.
(more…)
Ciro de Quadros, executive vice president at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, sheds some light around dengue, a disease that puts 2.5 billion people at risk.
Every day, parents in the United States take their children to doctors to be immunized against deadly diseases. Vaccines are arguably one of the greatest scientific achievements and save more lives than any other health intervention. Yet today, at least 2.5 billion people -– two fifths of the world’s population -– are at risk of contracting dengue, a disease for which a vaccine is not yet available.
Map showing areas of dengue risk via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(more…)
