Vaccine group backs WHO on pneumonia fight

[Guest guest]

They change their tune to fit their current cause, don't they? Used to be that diarrhoea was the biggest child killer...

I suppose any ailment will do as long as there is a vaccine for it.

Vaccine group backs WHO on pneumonia fight

Last Updated: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 | 4:58 PM ET Comments5Recommend1

The Associated Press

A global vaccine group hopes the World Health Organization will pass a resolution later this week to step up efforts against pneumonia.

, the former Irish president, says the GAVI Alliance, a partner of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, wants to send pneumonia and rotavirus vaccines to more than 40 developing countries.

But the alliance, formerly called the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, needs $2.6 billion in funding through 2015.

WHO's support would be a "terrific step forward," said. "Pneumonia is the biggest child killer, and there's such an inequity to it."

Britain proposed the resolution at the UN agency's 193-nation World Health Assembly. It should come to a vote by Friday.

Britain's GlaxoKline and U.S.-based Pfizer Inc. Make pneumonia vaccines.Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/05/19/pneumonia-vaccine.html#ixzz0oR2pgxFa