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Published on: 1/1/2008
Last Visited: 12/1/2008
The anti-cervical vaccine is given to teenage girls before sexual contact, Geoff Adlide, head, advocacy and public policy of Geneva based GAVI Alliance, said.
Adlide, who is here to attend the ongoing UN Conference on Financing Development, told The Peninsula in a brief interview yesterday that malaria remained the largest killer of children the world over.
An Australian, Adlide said a lot of research initiatives on developing a vaccine against malaria were on but no breakthrough had yet been made.
"I think it might take another five to seven years before we have a vaccine to fight the killer disease."
GAVI Alliance, he pointed out, had helped immunise an incredible 159 million people against hepatitis-B in 67 countries around the world over the past six years.
The anti- hepatitis-B vaccine is most effective when it is given to children under one year of age.
Pneumonia is the next bigger killer of children and accounts for some 20 per cent, or 800,000 deaths in poorer countries.
But an effective vaccine is already available against the disease, he said.
GAVI tackles leading global causes of vaccine-preventable deaths in children under five years old.