Dec. 13, 2010 /EIN Presswire/ — An inexpensive vaccine was recently created that could end bacterial meningitis epidemics in Africa.
The goal of a series of immunization campaigns is to immunize people in 25 African countries, from Senegal to West Ethiopia, saving an estimated 150,000 lives by 2015.
Although hundreds of millions of dollars in funding is still needed to accomplish that goal, this cheap vaccine is a major breakthrough in ameliorating the disease. Over the past two decades, more than a million cases of bacterial meningitis were reported in Africa.
At less than 50 cents per dose, the cost of the new vaccine is particularly cheap because of private funding and its process of development. Bill Gates, whose foundation financed the new drug, said that unlike vaccines for measles, smallpox and polio, which were developed “because rich people got sick,” the new vaccine “went through the whole process where there was no rich world market, and it had to be optimized at a very low price.”
For more health news, visit Healthcare Industry Today (http://health.einnews.com), a healthcare media monitoring service from EIN News.
