Vaccine against world’s top child killer launched

A vaccine against pneumonia, the leading cause of child deaths around the world, has been rolled out in Kenya and is expected to save hundreds of thousands of lives in coming years.

Pneumococcal disease accounts for 18 per cent of child deaths in developing countries, killing more than a million children under the age of five every year, according to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.

“Kenya is the first African country to roll out this pneumococcal conjugate vaccine which has been specially tailored to meet the needs of children in developing countries,” GAVI said in a statement.

GAVI is a public-private body which brings together UN agencies, the World Bank, philanthropists, the vaccine industry and research agencies to improve children’s health through immunis-ation.

It claims to have prevented more than five million deaths since it was created at the World Economic Forum in 2000.