New support for measles vaccine to help save more than one million lives

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Gavi Board approves ambitious package to tackle highly-infectious disease

Geneva 3 December 2015 – A new package of support for measles and rubella immunisation approved today by the Board of Gavi the Vaccine Alliance will contribute towards saving more than a million lives. The decision marks a significant step forward in the approach to tackling measles and rubella in developing countries.

Despite progress over the past decade global targets to eliminate measles are significantly off-track. The disease still claims the lives of more than 100000 people worldwide every year most of them children under 5 years of age. The disease is so infectious that an unvaccinated person could catch measles in a doctors waiting room hours after an infected person has left the building. Communities with measles vaccination coverage rates lower than 90-95% are at risk of fast-spreading outbreaks leading to numerous fatalities.

The package of support we have agreed on today will save lives and give developing countries a golden opportunity to reform how they protect their children against measles 

Dagfinn Høybråten Chair of the Gavi Board

Gavis revised strategy will help consolidate the currently fragmented approach to tackling measles in developing countries underpinned by strong routine immunisation programmes with high coverage. This will put countries firmly on the road towards controlling the disease; they will also be able to take advantage of childrens visits to health facilities for measles vaccinations to increase coverage rates of other vaccines.

Gavi will support periodic data-driven measles and rubella campaigns to ensure children who have not been reached through routine immunisation are protected as well as supporting parts of the Measles & Rubella Initiatives (M&RI) work to tackle any outbreaks. Under the new approach these campaigns will be better planned and synchronised with other immunisation activities and be more targeted at the hardest to reach children. They will also be independently monitored.

Countries will be required to have a five-year rolling measles and rubella plan as part of their long term routine immunisation plans which will be updated annually.
Best read in link below;
http://www.gavi.org/Library/News/Press-releases/2015/New-support-for-measles-vaccine-to-help-save-more-than-one-million-lives/
 
A.I.M