Tag Archives: Ghana

The great, the good, the glamorous… and Ghana

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By Dan Thomas, GAVI Alliance

The great, the good and the glamorous are gathering in Washington DC this week to talk about some big issues affecting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children and adults.

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Anyone who is anyone in global health and development is in town.

Nobel prize winner President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Malawi’s President Joyce Banda top the bill at the Frontiers in Development Conference from 11-13 June and Hillary Clinton will kick things off at the Child Survival Call to Action from 14-15 June.

Mandy Moore, Christy Turlington Burns and Ben Affleck will add a little glamour but also a ton of heartfelt commitment. And, only slightly less exciting if you are a “development insider”, members of the GAVI Alliance Board will meet 12-13 June to review progress since the historic GAVI Pledging Conference one year ago when generous donors,
including Australia, made unprecedented commitments to childhood immunisation.

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Two new vaccines to protect the children of Ghana

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By Dan Thomas, GAVI Alliance

26 April, 2012 will mark a milestone for Ghana. On that day, during World Immunisation Week, the West African nation will make an unprecedented step towards saving the lives of its children from two of the biggest child killers in the country, through the simultaneous introduction of two new vaccines.

Yet word is spreading about these two devastating diseases, and thanks to generous donors around the world, the GAVI Alliance is making pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines available to children in the developing world.

Globally, pneumococcal disease is responsible for approximately half a million deaths among children under five every year. As well as being the leading cause of pneumonia, it also causes meningitis, which leaves many of the children it does not kill with permanent disabilities, including mental retardation and seizures. Pneumococcal disease can also lead to blood poisoning, as well as middle ear infections, which can cause permanent deafness.

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