Vaccination - Economic Justification and Market Develpoment
Vaccination: A drop of pure gold. The Economist print edition, Oct 13th 2005
Website: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5017166
“…..WHAT good is vaccination? Obviously it is good for the person receiving the vaccine, if he is thus prevented from suffering from a nasty disease. More subtly, it can be good for an entire population since, if enough of its members are vaccinated, even those who are not will receive a measure of protection. That is because, with only a few susceptible individuals, the transmission of the infection cannot be maintained and the disease spread. But in the case of many vaccines, there are non-medical benefits, too, in the form of costs avoided and the generation of income that would otherwise have been lost. These goods are economic.…..”
The Value of Vaccination
David E. Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography at the Harvard School of Public Health. David Canning, Professor of Economics and International Health at Harvard University. Mark Weston, independent writer and researcher based in the UK.
World Economics - Volume 6, Number 3 (July-September 2005)
Abstract at: http://www.world-economics-journal.com/
”….Despite advances during the twentieth century, immunization coverage is far from universal and faces significant obstacles in both developing and developed countries. Weak policy emphasis on vaccination may be the result of the narrow view of its benefits in scientific and policy-making communities, which focus mainly on the averted costs of medical treatment. An investigation of the broader impacts of immunization shows that the benefits of vaccine programs—in particular, their economic effects via improved health—have been underestimated, thereby causing the rate of return to be underestimated….”
The following maps highlight the global polio progress since 1988, the year the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched:
http://www.polioeradication.org/progress.asp
Tremendous progress has been made in the global fight against polio since 1988, when the World Health Assembly resolved to eradicate the disease.
The number of polio cases worldwide has decreased from 350 000 in 1988, to 1,255 cases in 2004.
The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI): Is it a New Model for Effective Public Private Cooperation in International Public Health?
http://www.globalhealthtrust.org/doc/abstracts/WG1/MuraskinPAPER.pdf
Making Practical Markets for Vaccines
Volume 2 | Issue 10 | OCTOBER 2005 - PLoS Med 2(10): e271
Donald W. Light, professor of comparative health care systems at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, a fellow of the Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, and an adjunct fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
Available online at: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020271
A new paper on purchasing vaccines for diseases of the poor so as to maximize their value per billion dollars of donations and their impact on DALYs and premature deaths.