Quantcast
Published On: Thu, Oct 20th, 2016

UNICEF obtains pentavalent vaccine at lowest-ever price

Breakthrough prices have been achieved with six vaccine suppliers who offered to price pentavalent vaccine at an 84 cents a dose average – half the price that the UN children’s agency currently pays.

Spinning globeIn the next three years, UNICEF will buy 450 million doses to send to 80 countries. Four hundred million doses will be allocated to Gavi-supported and transitioning countries. The vaccine will protect tens of millions of children from potentially deadly infections caused by diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b.

Since 2001, strong collaboration on market shaping across Gavi Alliance partners, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WHO and UNICEF, has achieved an affordable and sustainable pentavalent vaccine supply for children in the world’s poorest countries.

The new pricing can also be accessed by governments who self-finance procurement of this cost-effective vaccine. It will generate over $366 million in savings for donors and for governments.

“Ninety per cent of the world’s children under five who die from vaccine-preventable diseases live in countries whose vaccine supply is no longer fully funded by donors,” said Shanelle Hall, Director of UNICEF’s supply and procurement headquarters. “For the most vulnerable children in the world, pricing can make a difference between life and death,” Hall added.

“Gavi estimates that 5.7 million deaths will be averted thanks to pentavalent vaccination in Gavi-supported countries between 2011 and 2020,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “The market for five-in-one vaccines is now a lot healthier than it was just a few years ago thanks to our collective efforts to grow a base of vaccine suppliers. We remain committed to making vaccine markets work better for the world’s poorest countries to ensure immunization investments and efforts are sustainable for all.”

Achieving milestones in making vaccines more affordable illustrates how collaborative engagement, including with vaccine suppliers, can result in vaccine markets that put children’s health first.

Careful monitoring of supply and demand in vaccine markets and consultations with vaccine manufacturers have helped determine the most effective actions to secure sufficient production levels and efficiencies of scale. Between 2001 and 2015, UNICEF’s pentavalent vaccine procurement jumped from 14.5 million to more than 235 million doses, mainly driven by the increase in demand in countries supported by Gavi.

Read more at UNICEF

On the DISPATCH: Headlines  Local  Opinion

Subscribe to Weekly Newsletter

* indicates required
/ ( mm / dd ) [ALL INFO CONFIDENTIAL]

About the Author

- The generic Dispatch designation, used primarily for press releases or syndicated content, but may be used for guest author requesting a generic nomenclature

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these html tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

like_us_on_facebook

 

The Global Dispatch Facebook page- click here

Movie News Facebook page - click here

Television News Facebook page - click here

Weird News Facebook page - click here 

DISPATCH RADIO

dispatch_radio

THE BRANDON JONES SHOW

brandon_jones_show-logo

Archives