Rapid expansion of global vaccine campaign against pneumonia 'unprecedented'

Nov 11 2011

"A global push to bring a vaccine against the bacterial cause of pneumonia to communities that need it most is ramping up quickly, expanding to nearly 60 countries in the next five years," PBS NewsHour's "The Rundown" reports. "At least three million child deaths could be prevented in the next decade through the global vaccine rollout, according to a new analysis published Thursday in the journal of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene by health experts from Children's Hospital Boston and Johns Hopkins University, among others," the blog states, adding, "More new research released this week by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health called the rate of the rollout and its quick expansion 'unprecedented.'"

The blog includes a video preview of Friday's NewsHour, in which "Ray Suarez reports from Nicaragua, the first country to receive the vaccine as part of the new campaign, and examines the market corporate-government-NGO agreement that made it possible for poor countries to afford it" (11/10).