New vaccine for Africa (Graphic Business)

Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A NEW conjugate vaccine against meningococcal A which costs $0.5 a dose and developed for use in Africa. has been launched in a national vaccination programme in Burkina Faso.
The campaign to vaccinate all children and young adults from the ages of one to 29 years with the vaccine, MenAfriVac, began in Burkina Faso on December 6, 2010. Niger and Mali will follow with similar vaccination campaigns with other countries awaiting their turn.
“MenAfriVac has been developed specifically for Africa—to provide protection against meningitis A, the commonest form of the disease in African countries, and at an affordable price,” said Mark LaForce, the Director of the PATH Meningitis Vaccine Project.
Until now, the only measure to reduce the impact of meningitis has been reactive vaccination programmes with polysaccharide vaccines, but these provide protection for only about one year and not the long-lasting cover required for a preventive vaccination programme.
In a release ahead of the vaccination campaign in Burkina Faso, Jean-Marie Okwo-Bele, Director of Immunisation, Vaccines and Biological with the World Health Organisation (WHO), said “Having this new vaccine is a huge accomplishment in public health because it will affect the lives of 450 million people who are at risk of this disease and who live in the well documented African meningitis belt.”
The model has been described as dramatically different to the usual patent-based, profit driven model. Its developers have succeeded in tailoring the product to suit developing country medical needs, and keeping the vaccine affordable. This is a contrast to the blockbuster vaccines developed by the largest commercial developers for Western markets, that fetch extremely high prices and are not produced with developing country needs in mind.
It is estimated that at least 70 per cent of the population in meningitis belt countries would need to receive at least one dose of the new vaccine to establish herd immunity. After the initial catch-up vaccination programme in each country, regular campaigns will be needed to vaccinate new birth cohorts.
Clinical trials with MenAfriVac have shown the vaccine is safe and highly immunogenic, achieving 95 per cent protection. Protection lasts for 10-15 years, but long-term surveillance studies will establish whether a booster dose is needed to maintain immunity.
The Meningitis Vaccine Project has adopted a new paradigm for developing vaccines for low income countries.
It started with research in Africa to understand the constraints previously limiting the development of new vaccines in countries in the meningitis belt. African public health officials emphasised vaccine price as a key component and suggested that unless a new vaccine cost less than $0.5 per dose, it would not be sustainable.
The project brought together a consortium in which different companies and organisations provided the technical expertise to develop the vaccine, supplied basic materials and manufactured the vaccine at an affordable price.
“The fact that the project to develop this vaccine was tailored to the needs of the meningitis belt in Africa at a price that they could pay, is a real breakthrough and should be used for other problems of this sort,” said Cathy Hewison, medical adviser with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
MSF welcomed the vaccination campaigns in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali but called for further funding to extend provision to other African countries.
So far, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation has only committed to helping pay for vaccines in the first three countries and no donor has offered financing for campaigns elsewhere.

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