Gates-backed alliance pledges $200M in vaccines for poor

Though they may not know its name, parents around the world are familiar with the intestinal bug called rotavirus. Nearly every child suffers through at least one bout, marked by fever, vomiting and severe diarrhea.

In the United States and the rest of the developed world, the infections are rarely fatal.

But in poor nations, the virus and the dehydration it causes kill half a million youngsters a year.

A coalition of the world's wealthiest nations, brought together by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced a $200 million commitment Wednesday to help wipe out that inequity.

The money will buy millions of doses of two newly developed vaccines: One for rotavirus and another against several strains of pneumonia that kill nearly a million children worldwide every year.

"Over the next 20 years, resulting from the step taken today, there is the possibility ... to save 5 million lives," said Dr. Orin Levine, director of the project to distribute the pneumonia vaccine.

PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit, is spearheading the rotavirus program.

Normally, it takes 10 to 15 years for a new vaccine to reach the developing world, said PATH's Dr. John Wecker. Poor nations can't afford the drugs, and drug companies can't make a profit.

With the $200 million investment, children in South America and other poor nations will start getting the new vaccines by the end of next year — about two years after they were first introduced in the United States and Europe.

"Now we've got real money," Wecker said by phone from Berlin, where the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) is meeting. "And we've got manufacturers willing to come to the table."

The companies that developed the vaccines — British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline and U.S.-based Wyeth and Merck — agreed to provide the vaccines at a lower cost in the developing world. In the United States, the three-dose rotavirus vaccine costs about $180.

The GAVI money assures the companies of a predictable market for the drugs.

The next step for GAVI and the drug companies is to negotiate the actual prices.

Launched in 2000 with a $750 million donation from the Gates Foundation, GAVI brings together wealthy nations and organizations . By pooling resources, tracking results and demanding accountability, GAVI allows donor nations to get the biggest bang for their aid dollars, Levine explained.

The Gates Foundation's support now totals $1.5 billion. The United States has committed more than $300 million.

GAVI's initial push was to immunize more than 115 million children with vaccines that U.S. children have received for decades: polio, measles, whooping cough, hepatitis B. The rotavirus and pneumonia projects are the organization's first attempts to speed new drugs to the developing world.

But $200 million won't be enough, Levine pointed out. He estimates it will cost about $1 billion per vaccine to achieve widespread coverage among children in Africa, South America, Asia and Eastern Europe.

"GAVI knows this is the first step... ," he said. "But what they're doing is breaking the log jam."

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com