PHA-Exch> Advance Marketing Commitment (AMC) for pneumococcal vaccine is siphoning off MGD funds

[Gopal Dabade]

Dear friends at PHM,

Persons have reacted with disbelief at our posting on the WHO response to
our letter titled “*WHO to blame for dangerous child vaccine?” *which was
posted on PHM e-forum dated 24th April 2009 on the pneumococcal vaccine.
AIDAN (http://aidanindia.wordpress.com/) and its members now call for a
wider debate on how MDG funds and GAVI funds are utilized.

The pneumococcal vaccine illustrates the problem quite neatly. Madhi et al
in the Bull WHO (http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/10/08-056572.pdf) have
given data on the numbers actually helped by the vaccine. 1,000 children
need to be vaccinated to prevent 4 cases of pneumonia. Given that the
vaccine costs Rs 12,000 per child (US $ 250) in India, Rs 12 million (US
$250,000) will be spent to prevent these 4 cases of pneumonia that would
cost Rs 40 (US $1) to treat. This is the vaccine about which AIDAN wrote to
the DG WHO and the reply dated 3rd April 2009 suggests that there seems to
be a complete disconnect with the ground realities*.

The reply sates:-

 *“We think that the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines, where merited by
evidence of the disease burden, would be of tremendous benefit, saving many
lives, particularly of children. WHO stands ready to assist its Member
States to assess the need for the use of specific new vaccines, to aid in
decision-making, prioritization and introduction, and to work on solutions
for financing them. We look forward to creating a world where no person
should die of a vaccine-preventable disease and to cooperating with
countries and partners to realize this goal.”*

By entering into AMC (Advance Marketing Commitments *for vaccines*, accessed
at http://www.vaccineamc.org/) with vaccine manufacturers to market this
vaccine in developing countries MGD and GAVI funds are being siphoned off to
vaccine manufacturers without commensurate benefits to the children in
developing countries.

*We call on PHM members and other like minded groups and individuals to
lobby with their governments to demand more answerability from WHO on how it
spends scarce MDG and GAVI funds***



Dr Gopal Dabade
Dr Jacob Puliyal

All India Drug Action Network,
(http://aidanindia.wordpress.com/)

*The correspondence can be accessed at:-
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=0cf52d0d2e2f36617069484bded33bcdc16827562d880744

-- 
http://novartisboycott.org/petition

Dr Gopal Dabade,
57, Tejaswinagar,
Dharwad 580 002
Tel 0836-2461722
Cell (0)9448862270
www.jagruti.org
http://aidanindia.wordpress.com/
www.daf-k.cjb.net
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