As a nurse who has worked in
developing countries such as Malawi, SI UN Representative Gloria Essoka was
excited to attend an NGO event about the role vaccines have in improving global
health. Gloria writes for SI about this event, which highlighted the key role
women have in ensuring that more children are vaccinated and needless deaths
prevented.

 

Vaccinations
save lives, and are a key tool in improving health worldwide. However, many
people do not have access to vaccines – either they are not offered or they are
unaffordable. This leads to a large number of children and adults dying or
living with the physical effects of disease, needlessly. What we don’t always
think about is how and why the empowerment of women and improved rates of
vaccination are connected. An NGO event at the UN in New York, discussed
exactly this.

Both
the Ambassador from Nepal and the Ambassador of Ethiopia presented information
from their own countries showing that when women have access to information,
and are economically empowered, rates of child immunisation increase. The
success of immunisation programmes depend on people choosing to have
their child vaccinated. As women make many of the decisions about the lives of
their children, it makes sense that giving them more information could change
the choices they make.

Economic empowerment is important: Without the money  to pay for the vaccine, women who might choose to immunise their child are unable to – they do not have a real choice.

Looking
forward to the post-2015 Development Agenda, proposed Sustainable Development Goal
3.3 is ‘By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected
tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other
communicable diseases’. To achieve this, wide-reaching, multi-stakeholder initiatives
and programmes will be needed. Women must be a key agent of change: this was
made clear by the information given by the Ambassadors of Nepal and Ethiopia.

Hepatitis
B, meningitis, diphtheria and tuberculosis are a big problem for the developing
world, and there are vaccines for all of them. If those vaccines were fully
provided, then we would be half way to achieving SDG 3.3. The World Health
Organisation (WHO) recommends the routine use of vaccines against these
diseases but there is a significant gap between the provision in rich and poor
countries. Problems with supply, payment and access to vaccines means that
there are between five and six million preventable deaths annually.

 

Click on the image above to find more resources from UNICEF on immunisation. Photo courtesy of UN News and Media.

Tuberculosis
(TB) poses a slightly different problem. Although there is a vaccine for TB it is
only partially effective. The vaccine provides protection against some severe
forms of childhood TB, but is unreliable for infant and adult forms. If
diagnosed, most TB cases can be treated with a course of antimicrobial
medicine. When it comes to infectious disease, tuberculosis is the second
largest killer after HIV/AIDS and it is among the top five causes of death for
women aged 15 to 44.

Again,
medicine and vaccine costs mean people die needlessly from TB. Data from the WHO
shows that over 95% of cases and deaths from TB are in developing countries –
most of these would be preventable. So, we must ask, why aren’t they prevented
and what more can be done to prevent them?   

Here,
there is hope. Data also indicates that vaccines have successfully decreased
the number of deaths by 50% since 1990. If we close the gap between vaccine
provision in rich and poor countries then the number of those who die will
further decrease. On top of that, if we empower women by educating them about
vaccines and ensuring that they have access to them, then vaccine uptake rates
will improve faster still. The result? – Fewer needless deaths.

 

Mothers in Haiti wait to inoculate their children against diphtheria and tetanus. Photo courtesy of UN News and Media.

What
we also need are more vaccines. The vaccine for TB was developed in 1921 and it
is still the only one we have. More should be done to develop a new, and more
effective TB vaccine. Research into vaccines and medicines for HIV/AIDS and
malaria also must be further supported. The infectious disease triumvirate of
TB (and other associated respiratory infections), HIV/AIDS and malaria cause over 90% of
disease related deaths in the developing world. The companies that develop these vaccines also
need to be incentivised to supply them to developing countries at affordable
prices. There is no point developing a vaccine that people cannot access and
cannot afford.

By
combining the approaches of improved vaccine and medicine development, ensuring
supply and access, and empowering and educating women about vaccines then we
could irradiate diseases like TB, meningitis, and malaria. Millions of people
do not need to die of these diseases, and to prevent deaths we must develop an effective
united approach that recognises the role women has as key players in improving
vaccine uptake.

 

Image courtesy of the UN Information Centre