WHO recommends rotavirus vaccine for all children
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that oral rotavirus vaccines be included in all national immunisation prog-rammes to avert half a million diarrhoeal deaths and 2 million hospitalisations a year.
Children in Europe and the Americas have had access to the rotavirus vaccine for three years but it had previously not been tested in and approved for low-income settings where the dehydrating disease is most lethal.
The U.N. agency's new global guidance is expected to boost demand for Merck's RotaTeq, GlaxoSmith-Kline's Rotarix vaccines in Africa and Asia, and from health charities.
"This WHO recommendation clears the way for vaccines that will protect children in the developing world from one of the most deadly diseases they face," said Tachi Yamada of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Rotavirus is a leading cause of severe gastroenteritis, including vomiting and diarrhea, in infants and young children. The contagious infection kills an estimated 1,600 children under the age of 5 every day, mostly in Africa and Asia.
Developing countries wanting help to distribute the rotavirus vaccine can seek assistance from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), a Geneva-based international procurer and WHO partner.
GAVI, the WHO and the UN children's agency Unicef are now working to develop "a new accelerated and integrated approach" to tackle rotavirus diarrhoea and pneumonia together.
Those two vaccine-preventable diseases account for more than 35 percent of the world's child deaths each year, the vast majority in poor countries, the WHO said.
It also stressed that "there are many causes of diarrhoeal disease," meaning that efforts to improve water quality, sanitation standards and access to rehydration salts must continue despite the expansion of the vaccine.
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