PATH is working with partners in India and China to advance promising new rotavirus vaccines. |
Development of new vaccines critical to protect children everywhere
Why is diarrhea the second leading killer of children under five in the developing world? It doesn’t have to be, especially if these children can get rotavirus vaccine.
Poor sanitation, insufficient treatment systems, and lack of access to life-saving vaccines translate into two million deaths and millions more hospitalizations from severe, dehydrating diarrhea every year. While dozens of pathogens can cause diarrhea, rotavirus is one of the most deadly, responsible for nearly 30 percent of all cases—killing more than 500,000 children every year.
Many cases of diarrhea can be prevented through improved sanitation or treated with simple oral rehydration therapy, but rotavirus is not responsive to these traditional measures. The virus is so contagious and resilient that traditional hygiene measures—like encouraging hand washing and providing clean water—just don’t work well enough. And rotavirus infection often causes vomiting, which makes oral rehydration therapy far less effective. For these reasons, vaccination is the best method for saving the lives of children in the developing world. Unfortunately, rotavirus vaccine is not yet readily available to them.
PATH’s philosophy is simple: children in the developing world should have access to safe, effective, and affordable vaccines as quickly as possible. That’s why we’re working on rotavirus vaccine on two fronts, making existing vaccines more available now and speeding the development of new vaccines for the future.
Encouraging new enterprise
Two rotavirus vaccines are currently licensed and used in several countries, and PATH is working to make them broadly available in the developing world. Although the manufacturers of existing rotavirus vaccines can meet global demand over the next several years, new vaccines and suppliers will be a essential to keeping pace with the market as it continues to grow. In addition to increasing available supply, new vaccines mean more competition, which will help make all of the rotavirus vaccines on the market more affordable.
PATH is collaborating with emerging vaccine manufacturers—Shantha Biotech in India and China’s National Biotec Group’s Wuhan Institute of Biological Products—to develop two promising candidates into safe, effective, and affordable vaccines. Over the next few years, we will work closely with these companies in the areas of clinical development, manufacturing, and compliance with national and World Health Organization regulations, streamlining the development process and allowing these vaccines to become licensed more quickly.
Our efforts should help advance the development of new rotavirus vaccines, human-bovine reassortant vaccines, that will protect against strains that have recently emerged recently in Asia and Africa. The reassortant vaccines can be updated as new strains emerge.
In addition, PATH is supporting the development of a “shared technology platform” that will be made available to all manufacturers working in earnest and meeting development milestones on the human-bovine reassortant vaccine. This toolbox of technologies, training, and common technical support will help maximize the production and global availability of rotavirus vaccine.
Learn more about our partners who are helping make equal protection against rotavirus a reality.
Lasting change
Today, nearly every child in the world, rich or poor, contracts rotavirus before the age of three—but more than 85 percent of rotavirus-related deaths occur in the developing world. By accelerating promising vaccine candidates, PATH and our partners are striving to right these imbalances, providing children in poor countries with the protection that is already available to children in wealthier ones.Photo: Jessica Fleming.