Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
Millions of babies and children could soon be
protected against
the deadly disease pneumonia.
Two leading drug companies have agreed to supply
vaccines against pneumococcal disease to the
world's poorest countries at a reduced price. Pfizer
and GlaxoSmithKline signed the historic Advance
Market Commitment agreement in March. The Global
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, or GAVI,
helped negotiate the deal.
The group says the low cost vaccines could save as
many as seven million lives by the year twenty
thirty.
The World Health Organization says pneumonia kills
almost two million children each year. This is
more than AIDS, malaria and
measles combined. It is the leading cause of death
among young children. And, more than ninety percent
of those deaths happen in the developing world.
These are all reasons why GAVI chose the
pneumococcal vaccine for its first Advance Market
Commitment project. The private-public partnerships
are designed to increase the availability of low
cost vaccines
in poor areas. Last year,
the governments of Italy,
the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia and Norway joined
with the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They provided one
and a half billion dollars to launch the
pneumococcal vaccine project. Jeffrey Rowland is
with the GAVI alliance. He says the money helps to
persuade drug makers to take part in the project.
GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer are
the first two drug companies to
take part. They have agreed to provide thirty
million doses of the vaccine each year for ten
years. The first twenty percent of the vaccines will
sell for seven dollars a dose. The remaining eighty
percent will cost three dollars and fifty cents per
dose. That is ninety per cent less than current
prices in the United States.
Mister Rowland says the agreement
is a huge achievement for the developing world. He
says vaccination is a life or death question for
poor people. If you can vaccinate a child to prevent
a disease from happening it is a lot more cost
effective than it is to treat that disease
afterwards.
And that's the VOA Special English Development
Report. For transcripts and podcasts of our
programs, along with captioned videos and a lot
more, visit us at voaspecialenglish.com.
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