NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

ATHENS — Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has decried the high cost humanitarian organizations pay for vaccines – up to 20 times the normal prices – for vulnerable children in refugee settings. MSF and Save the Children are calling on drug companies to lower vaccine prices.

Humanitarian organizations have targeted pneumonia, along with polio, diphtheria and tetanus, in their efforts to vaccinate young children in Greek refugee camps. Pneumonia, according to an MSF news release, is the “single largest killer of children under five worldwide,” adding that it is a disease that “is particularly acute in humanitarian crises.”

Despite this, organizations have been paying $68 to vaccinate just a single child against the disease. The global price, in comparison, is roughly around $3 a dose. Further, the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) has to be taken in three doses to ensure full efficacy. In the past month alone, Doctors without Borders has vaccinated 5,000 children across Greece.