Top vaccine experts and child advocates meeting in Barcelona in April hailed dramatic new evidence of the role of immunisation in reducing deaths among children in the world’s poorest nations. “Each day, more and more children are being given life-saving vaccines. With higher immunisation rates, fewer of them are now dying of preventable infectious diseases,” said Graça Machel, President of the Foundation for Community Development (FDC) for Mozambique.
Sponsored by the GAVI Alliance, Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), and “la Caixa” Foundation, the event brought together high-level policy makers, researchers, and funders to announce progress to date in childhood immunisation and options for overcoming the financial, logistical, and technical barriers that hinder steps forward.
Contributed by Anuradha Bhattacharjee