Accessing next generation vaccines

Encouraging new generation vaccine production in developing countries requires intensive capacity building, technology

Public health practitioners agree that vaccines have saved more human lives than all other medical treatments. Preventive immunisation is an efficacious and cost-effective public health intervention, which can help prevent varied illnesses and save more lives.

Some days ago, I attended a very insightful talk by a leading vaccinologist at McGill University in Canada. It was fascinating to hear him speak about the latest formulations and vaccine delivery methods, which have great potential of improving human health.

Already, children in developing countries, such as Indonesia, are set to be protected from five major childhood diseases through a vaccine containing five antigens in one shot. This innovation would reduce the number of separate injections required for protection, while also minimising the number of visits required by families to health centres to ensure immunity of their children against these deadly diseases.

Moreover, since over 70 per cent of newly emerged diseases are transmitted from animals to humans, developing dual-use vaccines to prevent their spread from animals to humans is also critical. This is also another important challenge for the development of new vaccines, since it has the potential to improve food security and protect livelihoods of poor rural households, especially in the developing world.

Immunisation is currently helping avert nearly 2.5 million child deaths each year due to vaccination against six major diseases (pertussis, childhood tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, measles and diphtheria). Immunisation coverage has risen significantly over the years. However, Unicef estimated that at the end of 2012, nearly 23 million infants were still not receiving the three recommended doses to protect them against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has formulated a Global Vaccine Action Plan till 2020, which aims to simultaneously increase access to existing vaccines and emphasises the need for developing new and improved vaccines. But there are many challenges facing the achievement of these goals. There is a lack of incentives for major pharmaceutical companies to focus on diseases affecting populations, which have limited purchasing power. These new generation vaccines may also pay less attention to specific needs of developing countries, such as producing vaccines that do not require refrigeration.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Oxfam’s ‘access to essential medicines’ campaign has highlighted specific challenges facing increasing access to improved vaccination. This campaign points out that while conventional vaccines are now being produced in some developing countries themselves, the production of next generation vaccines is controlled by a handful of multinational pharmaceutical companies, which behave like oligopolies.

However, it is not possible to simply reverse-engineer vaccines. To encourage new generation vaccine production in developing countries requires intensive capacity building, technology transfers, and revision of existing patent rights to encourage pharmaceutical competition to lower prices and resultantly, increase accessibility. Multilateral agencies mandated to promote public health goals, like WHO or Unicef, must use their leverage within international development circles to draw greater attention to such issues as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st,  2014.

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