Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13730

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Puliyel JM, Shrivastava A.
Global access to vaccines: Poor nations are being lured into a debt trap
BMJ 2008 May 3; 336:(7651):974
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/336/7651/974-c?etoc

Abstract:

With regard to access to papillomavirus vaccine (Gardasil),1 let us assume that the vaccine covers all strains causing cervical cancer. In India 21m girls would have to be vaccinated each year to avoid 260 000 deaths at a cost for the vaccine alone of $8400m. The programme would have to be sustained for over 20 years. Even if it prevented all cervical cancers, it would reduce by only 2% the 10.9m deaths caused by infectious diseases.2 If the cost of the vaccine fell to $1 per dose, it would still cost $63m for the vaccine alone.

So rotavirus causes 440 000 deaths each year.1 If we have a vaccine that covers all the human strains (an overgenerous assumption for India3), 126m children around 2 months of age will need to be vaccinated three times (378m doses).2 At the present public sector cost of $7/dose4 the cost of the vaccine . . . [Full text of this article]