[e-drug] MSF Letter to the Editor in NYT re: meningitis vaccine

["Rachel COHEN" <Rachel.COHEN@newyork.msf.org>]

E-drug: MSF Letter to the Editor in NYT re: meningitis vaccine
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The New York Times
February 6, 2003
Africa Needs Vaccines

To the Editor:

Your Jan. 30 editorial "Vaccine Gap" described a tragedy that our
organization witnesses daily: people dying needlessly from diseases for
which vaccines exist.

Meningococcal meningitis epidemics, for example, regularly plague
sub-Saharan Africa, but the pharmaceutical companies that make effective
meningitis vaccines do not come close to producing the 20 million to 50
million doses needed to immunize people at risk in the African "meningitis
belt." A vaccine for a new strain of the disease is available to rich
travelers but not in sufficient quantities for the millions of Africans at
risk.

Affordable or donated vaccines are offered only when a deadly outbreak,
like the one threatening Burkina Faso today, is already in progress.
Private donors have responded, but wealthy country governments have done
virtually nothing to find a long-term solution to this deadly "vaccine
gap."

BERNARD PECOUL, M.D.
Geneva, Jan. 31, 2003
The writer is director, Access to Essential Medicines Campaign, Doctors
Without Borders.

"Rachel COHEN" <Rachel.COHEN@newyork.msf.org>
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