Affordable Vaccines

New vaccines are much more expensive than older vaccines. Two of the newest vaccines -- against pneumonia and diarrhoea -- account for more than 70% of the total cost of vaccinating a child. Reasons for this include a very restricted number of manufacturers in the market resulting in a lack of competition to drive prices down, and a continuing lack of transparency by the vaccine industry over the costs to develop and manufacture vaccines.

Greater efforts are needed by GAVI and other major vaccine purchasers, to use their market weight in negotiating more affordable vaccines.