Concord Times (Freetown)
Ben Samuel Turay and Bryna Hallam
31 October 2008
Freetown — Sabin Vaccine Institute, a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC, paid a courtesy call to the ministry of health of sanitation yesterday, and talked about the advantages of immunization programmes.
During the visit, SVI said its mission was to actively reduce human suffering from infectious and neglected tropical diseases by providing greater access to vaccines and essential medicines, with a focus on polio, rubella, rotavirus and hookworm.
"We are here in Sierra Leone to promote immunization, to strengthen ways of the economy and to promote the country," said Michael McQuestion, SVI's Director of Advocacy for Sustainable Immunization Financing.
Founded in 1993, SVI advocates so that people around the world, especially in developing countries such as Sierra Leone, can have access to vaccines. Vaccines are medicines that can stop people from getting certain diseases.
According to SVI, vaccines are one of the best buys a country can make: less than US$20 spent to immunize a child brings an added year of healthy life. Unfortunately, many governments don't have enough money for the programs.
Dr. Alhassan L. Sesay, the acting director of the department of primary health care in the ministry of health and sanitation, said the ministry will work with SVI. "The project is a very good idea. I hope that by the end of the five years Sierra Leone will gain from the immunization project."
Sierra Leone has an immunization programme that provides routine vaccinations to children. Since 2001, the number of people who have received vaccinations has increased, and as a result, the country is now free of polio.
McQuestion said SVI has a $9.2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a programme to help countries pay for their immunization systems. Over the next six years the Sabin Advocacy Project for Sustainable Immunization Financing will work with 15 developing countries and the GAVI Alliance, a global donor partnership that includes the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the World Bank Group.
"We are working in Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali, Cameroon, Liberia, Nigeria, D.R. Congo, Rwanda, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Cambodia," McQuestion said.
"Sustainability is assured when countries are meeting all their immunization costs through some combination of long-term domestic and external funding. The Advocacy Project expects the 15 countries to have reached this goal by 2015."
Technical Adviser of Sabin Vaccine Institute Clifford Kamara said, "Every year two million young lives are saved by vaccines. A million more in the developing world are within reach, with the advent of new and underutilized vaccines. Immunization programs are helping countries meet the Millennium Development Goal of cutting child mortality by two-thirds by 2015."
Pneumococcal disease is one of the diseases that could be prevented with immunizations. According to the World Health Organization, each year the disease kills over 1 million children less than five years of age, mostly in developing countries. Children under 24 months of age and children with disorders of the immune system are most at risk.
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