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Asian finance crisis threatens vaccinations

James Ciment, New York

 The financial crisis in South East Asia is threatening the development of new vaccination programmes.

When the International Vaccine Institute was inaugurated in Seoul, South Korea, in 1997 it was heralded as "the first international United Nations agency" based in the country. But it is threatened by the region's financial crisis--South Korean banks now owe over $150bn (£93bn) in long term debt to foreign and international lending institutions, and Korean companies owe their own financial institutions about $300bn.

Korean officials insist that Seoul will meet its financial obligation to help build the institute--the first international institution dedicated to the development of vaccines and vaccination programmes--and pay 30% of its annual operating expenses. But the possible delays in construction highlight the potential impact on health care in the region.

According to a report issued by the Children's Vaccine Initiative, an international consortium of Unicef, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Health Organisation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, about eight million children a year die from diseases that could be cured if new vaccines, now in their final stage of development, were widely available in developing countries.

The report also says that another four million children could be saved if existing vaccines against measles, hepatitis B, Hib pneumonia, meningitis, and neonatal tetanus were more effectively distributed. "But these children's lives won't be saved without prompt action to increase the worldwide rate of immunisation," says Unicef's executive director, Carol Bellamy. The annual cost of providing such vaccines to the poorest countries--largely in sub-Saharan Africa--would be about $25m, according to the Children's Vaccine Initiative.

In its 1998 report, State of the World's Vaccines and Immunisation, the institute warned that "while immunisation is a proven success and advances in science are continuing, the increased costs of vaccine development and immunisation, if met with flagging resources, could severely jeopardise the capabilities and hopes of researchers, healthcare providers and public health authorities in their bid to make the world safer for young children with new vaccines."
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