Topic overview

"She’s been so sick since she got pneumonia"

Samaha, shown with her younger sister and their father at MSF’s hospital – Jordan

VACCINES

Photograph by Hussein Amri/MSF

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Three things to know about vaccines

How MSF is responding to gaps in immunisation

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What MSF staff are saying

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I really support the campaign to get all kids vaccinated. I’m a medical student and I already know that kids are not being protected because the vaccine is too expensive. It’s outrageous and we want to be part of this campaign.

But children in Jordan and other countries are in danger every day because their governments can’t afford the vaccine.

Two companies, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, hold the global PCV vaccine monopoly. Under pressure from MSF, they dropped the price, but only for use in humanitarian emergencies. Now we want these corporations to do the same for all children in need.

Vaccination can protect children like her from pneumonia and other fatal diseases. And that matters more than any corporation's profits.

Why aren’t more children protected against deadly diseases?

At MSF’s hospital in Irbid, Jordan, near the Syrian border, a teenager named Samaha was exhausted from watching over her eleven-year-old sister. The younger girl was seriously ill

“She’s in a lot of pain,” Samaha said. “Last night she woke up and told me she wanted to give up. That’s when we brought her to the hospital.” Samaha’s sister was diagnosed with pneumonia. Pneumonia kills more children under the age of five than any other disease, and can be dangerous for older ones, too.

Dr. Anas Shorman is a pediatrician at the hospital, which cares for Syrian refugees. “We see many children with life-threatening respiratory infections,” he said. "Pneumonia is common. A vaccine called pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) can easily protect against it. Many deaths could be prevented if we could vaccinate more kids with PCV.”

Fortunately, with good care, Samaha’s sister recovered.

Three things to know about vaccines

Pneumonia kills nearly 1 million children every year 16% of all deaths of children under 5 years are caused by pneumonia

The cost of the basic childhood package of vaccines is up 68x since 2001

The cost of the basic childhood package of vaccines increased 68x

How MSF is responding to gaps in immunisation

Video |

06 December 2017

How MSF (and over 400K of you) brought down the price of the pneumonia vaccine

The Right Shot: Bringing down barriers to affordable and adapted vaccines - 2nd Ed., 2015

Report |

19 January 2015

Report |

19 January 2015

Immunisation is one of the most efficient ways to reduce child mortality. Yet, every year 1 out of every 5 children (under the age of 1 year) is not fully vaccinated, putting them at risk of dying of preventable diseases such as measles, pneumonia or diarrhoea.