Tamar Kahn
19 April 2007
Johannesburg — Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has joined calls for the health department to add its new vaccine against pneumonia and meningitis to the routine jabs given to young children as it could help prevent thousands of deaths among infants infected with HIV.
Pneumococcal diseases such as these are the leading cause of vaccine-preventable death in young children, says the World Health Organisation (WHO). It estimates that pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis kill between 800000 and 1-million children each year, most of whom live in the developing world. Young children infected with HIV were up to 40 times more likely to contract these illnesses than children without HIV/AIDS, making a vaccine valuable for countries such as SA, said Shabir Madhi, co-director of the respiratory and meningeal pathogens research unit at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Last month the WHO recommended that all countries, especially those with severe HIV/AIDS epidemics, include pneumococcal vaccines in their national immunisation programmes.
Two months ago, SA's National Advisory Group on Vaccines urged the department to include Wyeth's new pneumococcal vaccine, branded Prevenar, in jabs routinely given to babies. The vaccine protects against seven of the most dangerous and prevalent strains of pneumococcal bacteria, and is the only one of its kind on the market.
A vaccine under development by GlaxoSmithKline is years away from commercial production.
Prevenar was approved by the Medicines Control Council in late 2005, which means it is already available to private sector patients who can afford the hefty price tag of about R1800 for the minimum recommended course of three jabs. Wyeth sells the drug to its customers at R450 a shot, but pharmacists add mark-ups.
Since the vaccine is not part of the national immunisation programme, it is not available to children who depend on free government health services. By contrast, it cost the government R100 to protect babies against seven diseases (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, hepatitis B, haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) and tuberculosis) included in the national immunisation programme, Madhi said.
Madhi, who evaluated Prevenar in a clinical trial involving 40000 babies in Soweto, said Prevenar reduced the risk of pneumococcal disease in HIV-positive babies by 85%, and cut the risk by 65% in babies without HIV.
Wyeth medical director Nini Ramasamy conceded Prevenar was expensive and suggested the government look to donors and philanthropic organisations to help pay for the jab.
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