GAVI announces HPV, rubella vaccines will be available to developing countries

"The GAVI Alliance has announced that it will include human papillomavirus (HPV) and combined measles-rubella vaccines in its portfolio for the first time" to help protect women from cervical cancer and children from disability or premature death, Africa Science News reports. GAVI already supports the funding of several childhood vaccines in developing countries, including the five-in-one pentavalent vaccine, yellow fever vaccine, meningitis A vaccines, and pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines, according to the news service (Mwaura, 4/5).

According to Reuters, GAVI "is moving towards a price deal with drug makers which could mean the supply of millions of doses of cut-price cervical cancer vaccines to developing nations." In a statement, GAVI said that if a price deal is reached with the two manufacturers of the two available HPV vaccines and demand is met, "up to a million girls and young women could be protected from cervical cancer by 2015 in a handful of countries," with more than 20 million women being reached in 30 countries by the end of the decade, the news agency reports. GAVI's forecast "suggests that more than 700 million children could be reached [with rubella vaccine] by 2015 and one billion by 2020 through campaigns and routine immunization," Reuters writes (Kelland, 4/5).