Low Vaccination Rates In Poorest Nations Needlessly Claim Millions Of Lives, Says GAO

October 19, 1999

(OCT. 19, 1999) -- Four million of the more than 11 million children under age 5 who die each year in developing countries from infectious diseases die due to lack of access to vaccines that are readily available elsewhere, according to a new study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress's watchdog agency.

In investigating the problem of low vaccination rates in poor countries, GAO found that the poorest countries have vaccination rates that are 26 percent below the global average of 82 percent. Inadequate public health infrastructure, the relatively higher cost of newer and more effective vaccines, wars and civil conflicts and inadequate data collection are keeping vaccines from children and other high-risk populations. The agency also found that these barriers contribute to the waste of many vaccine doses.

"The spread of infectious diseases will be a growing humanitarian and economic challenge as we head into the next century," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who released the report. "Compounding the tragedy is the fact that much of it is solvable. Poor children abroad are dying for lack of vaccinations that costs pennies in our country. This is a crisis of will, of scant resources and of poor planning and distribution. GAO's findings will help set the stage for a new strategy for global vaccine coverage."

The study was requested by Leahy and by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who chairs the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Leahy, the panel's ranking member and former chairman, has sponsored a global infectious diseases initiative that is strengthening international surveillance of disease outbreaks and development of tactics to combat TB, malaria and drug resistance by disease microbes. Leahy's initiative is about to enter its third year at $75 million or more, after its first two years at $50 million each year.

GAO will follow this report -- "Factors Contributing To Low Vaccination Rates In Developing Countries" -- in a few months with another that will suggest options for Congress to address these problems.

Copies of the GAO report are available from Leahy's office, on request. Contact David Carle, 202-224-3693.