Cholera vaccine stockpiles could help save lives in future outbreaks

Sep 21 2012

In a post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Helen Matzger, a program officer in new vaccine delivery at the foundation, writes about outbreaks of cholera in Haiti, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and other areas, and says creating stockpiles of a recently WHO-approved cholera vaccine could help save lives in the future. "The creation of a cholera stockpile is not a panacea; ... Still, the cholera vaccine works. Though many of us may never need it, millions of people living in some of the poorest regions of the world face cholera outbreaks all too often. We have a way to alter the course of an outbreak and save lives. Let's use it," she concludes (9/19).