The FINANCIAL -- GlaxoSmithKline today welcomed the decision of the GAVI Board
to provide funding to facilitate the provision of cervical cancer
immunisation programmes and rubella vaccination, across the world’s
poorest countries.
GAVI has confirmed that it will open a new funding window for vaccines that target the Human
Papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer. It is anticipated that as a result, up to two million women and girls living across nine developing countries could be protected from cervical cancer by 2015.
More than 80% of all cervical cancer deaths occur in developing countries where girls and women frequently do not have access to prevention services such as education, cervical cancer vaccination and potentially life-saving cervical cancer screening and early treatment.
GSK produces a vaccine called Cervarix, which is intended to help protect women against cervical cancer caused by infection with the Human Papillomavirus.The GAVI Board also agreed to open a new funding window for vaccines against the rubella virus which threatens pregnancy and child health. The plan is to reach 588 million children with rubella vaccines by 2015.
GSK has been a long-standing partner with the GAVI Alliance, and continues to supply more than 70% of its total vaccine volumes to the least developed countries. In June 2011, GSK made a new offer to supplyits rotavirus vaccine, RotarixTM, to the GAVI Alliance at a small fraction of developed world prices. It is estimated that more than half a million children die of rotavirus gastroenteritis each year – the equivalent of a child a minute worldwidei – and it is responsible for the hospitalisation of millions more.ii
The commitment for RotarixTMfollows the announcement in March 2010 that GSK would supply its pneumococcal vaccine, SynflorixTM, to GAVI at a heavily discounted price through an innovative financing mechanism known as the Advance Market Commitment. Pneumonia and rotavirus related diarrhoea are the two leading causes of death in children in developing countries.
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