About 4 million people, mostly children, die needlessly every year because countries don't vaccinate enough of their youngest citizens. Some 80 percent of the world's children are routinely vaccinated against polio, diphtheria and five other killers, programs that save 3 million lives a year.
Price is the first problem.
The vaccine against liver-destroying hepatitis B, for example, began selling in wealthy countries in 1986. Governments also must recognize the need to vaccinate. Southeast Asia, for example, argues it doesn't need immunization against Haemophilus influenza B, or Hib, which causes childhood meningitis and pneumonia. Members of the initiative, believing infections are high, just funded Korean researchers to study the problem's scope. A similar study in Gambia uncovered that Hib causes three times more of the country's childhood pneumonia than previously believed, persuading the African nation to vaccinate, Widdus said.