Access to Vaccines Index - A new catalyst for action_An ET article


Economic times published the interview of Jayasree K. Iyer, Executive Director, Access to Medicine Foundation, Netherlands. The excerpts:

What makes vaccines so important today?
Since the first vaccine was discovered in 1796, no other health commodity has had such a profound effect on children's lives. Many communities cannot fully access the vaccines needed to protect children, and newer vaccines are less available than the older ones. Many stakeholders such as the general public, governments, investors and producers of vaccines can do something about this issue and improve vaccine reach and coverage.

What is the role of vaccine manufacturers?
As innovators who develop and produce these life-saving vaccines, vaccine manufacturers can do a lot early in the vaccine supply chain, to help solve this problem. Manufacturers can make sure that vaccines developed are easy to use, stable in tropical climates (and reduce the need for refrigeration), etc. The idea is a single dose, oral, heat stable vaccine for use in low and middle income countries.

For example, Serum Institute of India, who manufactures and delivers vaccines to over 140 countries around the world became the first company to re-license a vaccine for use outside of the cold chain as part of the controlled temperature chain (CTC) campaign. MenAfriVac, a vaccine produced by them through the Bill & Melinda Gates-funded Meningitis Vaccine Project, a partnership between WHO and PATH, is the first vaccine to be prequalified by WHO for use at ambient temperatures of up to 40°C for up to four days. (The MenAfriVac campaign was held in November 2012 and the CTC approach was used.)

Manufacturers can also ensure that vaccines are affordable, especially important when governments or payers are purchasing vaccines, so that prices of vaccines don't dominate the healthcare budgets of countries or other payers.

Where does India stand in terms of vaccine access?
India is often called the pharmacy of the developing world and can do a lot to improve vaccine coverage. It has several significant vaccine manufacturers, and is a country that still has many un-immunized people living in poverty. There are important diseases where the industry can still help develop new vaccines (like Chikungunya) or ensure that vaccines are more suitable for use (like Hepatitis, Rotavirus, Pneomococcal virus vaccines, etc.). There are also shortages of vaccines, and manufacturers can be prepared for ensuring adequate stocks by having a better demand forecasting and plans in place to guarantee production.

India celebrated 3 years being free of polio in 2014, and can do the same for many other diseases. India is due to begin transitioning away from Gavi support from 2017 and is expected to begin fully self-financing all its vaccine programmes by 2021. Under the partnership strategy, Gavi will provide up to US$ 500 million between 2016 and 2021 to support India's immunisation programme, after which India will completely transition out of Gavi support.

What is the role of the Access to Medicine Foundation and why are you working on the Access to Vaccines Index?
At the Access to Medicine Foundation, we create a set of clearly defined metrics from a multi stakeholder consensus model that helps the industry to benchmark themselves according to their peers and global priorities. At the moment we have 9 of the biggest manufacturers participating in the Access to Vaccines Index, where they submit data to us and we evaluate their performance and identify areas for more action.

The framework for analysis helps inform company strategies which is important for all companies (regardless of whether they are one of the 9 or not), and we would like more companies adopting socially responsible ways of developing and marketing their vaccines. By monitoring progress, we ensure that there is a momentum for calling out action to improve access to vaccines. And we do this in 3 areas R&D, Affordability and Manufacturing & Supply of vaccines.

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