FrontLines: Vaccines Saved Millions after they were Offered to Poor Countries

In fighting vaccine preventable diseases like smallpox, polio, measles and pertussis in children throughout the developing world, USAID is a major supporter of routine immunization. Immunization is one of the most cost effective interventions for reducing child mortality and USAID has provided technical and financial assistance to more than 100 countries in support of child immunization programs helping prevent more than 4 million infant and child deaths annually.

Whereas in developed countries vaccination for children in their early years is greatly facilitated by well developed health care systems, such protection against disease is more difficult to provide to children in the developing world. Delivering protection from vaccine preventable diseases is not an easy task in countries with weak health care systems, poor infrastructure, and where large segments of the population have limited access to services. But through field missions, Washington bureaus and our cooperating agencies, USAID is a leading bilateral donor in the provision of financial and material support to national programs and built capacity at the country level to manage and implement immunization services.

Examples of intensive immunization interventions are smallpox and polio eradication programs. In the 1970s USAID invested in smallpox vaccination primarily in Africa. Smallpox affected 12-15 million people per year until 35 years ago, with an annual mortality rate of two million people. When international eradication of the disease began in 1967, smallpox was prevalent in more than 30 developing countries with more than half of the world's population. In 1980 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the world smallpox-free.

In 1988, WHO launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI), a public-private partnership with the goal to achieve a polio-free world by 2005. Major partners in this worldwide initiative with the WHO are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and Rotary International. The Polio Eradication Initiative has reduced the number of polio cases worldwide from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 784 cases at the end of 2003.

In the mid-1980s, USAID started its polio eradication efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean. That region was declared polio-free in 1994. Today, USAID supports polio eradication efforts in all countries where the disease may strike. Poliovirus still circulates in six countries (Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan, and Egypt) and continues to pose a worldwide risk.

USAID supported the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region to reduce measles mortality and measles cases through a combination of support to strengthening health care systems and targeted immunization campaigns. Due to this comprehensive approach the LAC region has been able to interrupt transmission of indigenous measles.

USAID has also supported research for new vaccines as well as supported research and development for new technologies such as the auto-disable syringe and vaccine vial monitors. The development of auto-disable syringes, a low-cost, single injection syringe that is used to administer vaccines around the world. provides a quicker, more convenient, and safer alternative for use because it reduces the chance of transmitting disease due to unsafe injection practices. USAID support also led to the development of vaccine vial monitors, or VVMs, which allow vaccines to remain outside the cold chain for limited periods of time.