Serious Need for Medical Assistance in Libya

More than 600,000 civilians in Libya are in need of humanitarian assistance. Major impediments include medical supply and staff shortages as well as a lack of electricity and running water, all superimposed upon the ongoing violence.

Three days ago, MSF reported that they have resumed operations in Libya, after being forced to leave Benghazi in mid-March due to security issues. The organization has not, however, been able to secure authorization to enter Libya via the Tunisian border.

Caritas has sent two Emergency Response Teams to the Libyan-Egyptian and the Libyan-Tunisian borders and is providing emergency aid. Image: Caritas Switzerland

Last week, the International Medical Corps was able to reach some of the areas of heaviest fighting in eastern Libya, but western Libya is still closed to humanitarian assistance. Caritas has sent two teams to the Libyan-Egyptian and Libyan-Tunisian borders. Across the country, there is a serious need for emergency health relief and supplies.

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Minutes June 3, 2010

Global Health Interest Group

Meeting minutes

Thursday June 3, 2010

In attendance: Mariam Fofana, Elisabet Pujadas, Nico Risko, Megan Rybarczyk, Sarah Wallace, Jessica Yang.

Summary of Discussion

Opening discussion: Global access to vaccines

Our guest Nico Risko, from the Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at JHSPH, gave a presentation on the history and current issues in global vaccine access.

• The WHO Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) paved the way for the introduction of DTP, BCG (tuberculosis), measles and polio vaccines, in collaboration with UNICEF. With the introduction of Hepatitis B and H. Influenza B vaccines in the late 80s, there was a need for new initiatives to allow low-income countries to introduce these vaccines.
• GAVI (Global Access to Vaccines Initiative), with funding from the Gates Foundation and international development agencies, has helped to subsidize vaccine purchases for low-income countries. However, middle-income countries like Brazil are not eligible for GAVI funding; some have relied on group negotiations through PAHO to obtain reduced prices from manufacturers.
• The problem with vaccine access is partly due to the fact that we’ve already figured out how to make simple vaccines (e.g. polio) and the vaccines that are now under development require much more complicated technology. Companies like GSK and Sanofi Aventis have little incentive to produce vaccines for which there is no market in developed countries since there is little prospect for profit. In order to be affordable to low-income countries, vaccines need to be priced within the cents range (<$1/dose).
• GlaxoSmithKline has made a deal with FioCruz in Brazil to transfer their pneumococcal vaccine development technologies in exchange for FioCruz marketing the vaccine at a set price and paying a portion of profits to GSK. Interestingly, GSK has also recently established an open source library of compounds that could potentially be active against malaria.
• IVAC serves as a core of expertise around the acceleration of vaccine access and it recently helped to establish an advance market commitment (AMC) for the pneumococcal vaccine. Although the AMC received criticism from MSF, which argues that lower prices might have been negotiated without the AMC, there is hope that AMCs can work better in the future, especially as vaccines for dengue and malaria are being developed.
• MSF and OxFam recently released a report that provides a great summary of vaccine development/marketing and the interventions that have been developed to promote global access. Read it if you have a chance!

Updates

• We did not get to have committee meetings but we will need to meet at some point to go over ideas for events next year and start planning over the summer as needed.