Rotavirus vaccines made available for use in humanitarian crises
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) announced an agreement with GSK to make rotavirus vaccines available to more children living in humanitarian crises, according to a news release.
The rotavirus vaccines protect children against severe diarrheal disease. Diarrhea is one of the leading causes of death among children under five.
The agreement makes use of a multi-partner humanitarian mechanism, which was launched in 2017. The rotavirus vaccine is the second vaccine to be accessed through the scheme, which depends on manufacturers making their vaccines available at their lowest price for use in emergencies - across countries of all income levels. The first to be made available was the pneumococcal vaccine.
