David Cameron and Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates lead the ‘Saving Children’s Lives’ conference in London today, where countries are being asked to increase contributions towards immunisation programmes in some of the world’s poorest nations by an additional £2.3bn by 2015.
Currently nearly 2 million children under five die each year from pneumonia alone, despite the existence of a vaccine.
Cameron has announced an additional pledge of £814m on top of his existing commitment of £680m between 2011 and 2015 to aid the vaccination of children against preventable diseases such as pneumonia.
Over the past decade the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) has been able to reach 288 million children with vaccines, saving more than 5 million lives. GAVI has said that the additional money could help to save 4 million lives in 4 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment