Until today, life-saving rotavirus vaccines were not accessible for most children in Africa, the continent with a staggering burden of rotavirus disease and where vaccines are desperately needed to prevent severe rotavirus diarrhea and save children’s lives:
• Where nearly a quarter of a million children die of rotavirus disease each year.
• Where roughly 40% of children hospitalized for severe diarrhea have rotavirus.
• Where urgent care and treatment for severe rotavirus diarrhea is often limited or unavailable.
Now there is a new story of hope and promise to tell about Africa—a story of a future where children who need the vaccine most will have a chance at a healthy and happy life, free from the threat of severe rotavirus disease.
Today the GAVI Alliance approved rotavirus vaccine funding for 16 new countries, 12 in Africa, including Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo DR, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, and Tanzania—and four other countries, including Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Yemen. On July 17, 2011, Sudan became the first African country to introduce rotavirus vaccines with GAVI Alliance funding—just two years after the World Health Organization recommended all countries introduce the vaccine into their national immunization programs. People have heard about Sudan’s introduction and have seen the news around the world that vaccines against rotavirus are saving lives in countries where children have access to them. They eagerly await the vaccine's arrival.
The coming wave of rollouts of rotavirus vaccines resulting from GAVI’s announcement today will provide a lifeline for children across the African continent and beyond.
Witness the progress of the rotavirus vaccine rollout in Sudan and hear firsthand accounts—straight from the mothers whose children suffer and the health workers who care for them—of the urgent need for rotavirus vaccines in Tanzania and throughout Africa and their joyful optimism for a future healthy life for their kids in this powerful video. View a striking photo montage that tells the remarkable story of the rollout of rotavirus vaccines across Africa, from vaccine introduction in Sudan to the preparations being made in Tanzania to receive the vaccine in the not too distant future. View an interview with rotavirus expert from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Manish Patel, on rotavirus disease and its impact on children in the developing world.
Global excitement can be felt far and wide for the potential of rotavirus vaccines to dramatically improve the health and well being of children by substantially reducing severe and fatal diarrhea.
Rotavirus and immunization experts, pediatricians, health workers, parents, and advocates are sharing their personal stories and perspectives on the implications of the rotavirus vaccine rollout across Africa. Below are some of their compelling blogs:
• Born and raised in Southern Africa, Dr. Duncan Steele is a globally recognized rotavirus expert and PATH’s Senior Advisor for Diarrheal Disease. Reflecting on three decades of tireless rotavirus research in his blog, “Quiet hopefulness and hard work: Rotavirus vaccines finally will reach across Africa- a time reflect,” Dr. Steele is excited to envision a new generation of healthy African children free from the misery of severe diarrhea.
• Dr. Amani Abdelmoniem Mustafa, Manager of the Expanded Program on Immunization for Sudan, vividly describes the progress of the rollout in Sudan, the joy of the parents, the challenges of vaccine delivery, and how she must reach every child by any means—because all children deserve to live healthy lives—in her blog, “From Sudan to all of Africa: Every child deserves to be vaccinated against rotavirus.”
• With experience as a pediatrician overseeing a diarrhea ward in Cameroon, Dr. Clarisse Loe Loumou, member of the Steering Committee of the GAVI Civil Society Organization Constituency, alerts us to the staggering burden of rotavirus in Cameroon and in Africa and shares her anticipation that vaccines—the best hope for preventing severe rotavirus diarrhea—will soon be available in Cameroon and throughout Africa in her blog, "Protect children against severe diarrhoea: here is the long awaited vaccine!" (French version)
• Co-chairs of the ROTA Council, Dr. Mathuram Santosham (Director of the Center for American Health and Professor of International Health and Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Dr. Ciro A. de Quadros (Executive Vice President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute), applaud this huge leap forward in protecting children from rotavirus and ask that while we celebrate, we set our sights high and ensure vaccine rollout in every high-burden country in their blog, “A Fight That Can be Won."
Visit GAVI’s website for more information on GAVI’s support for rotavirus vaccines and to view the full range of multimedia materials supporting this new momentous chapter in the fight against rotavirus and the efforts to increase affordable access to rotavirus vaccines and bring them to the children who need them most.
