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Vaccines and immunisation

Vaccines save millions of lives

But 20 million children under one year old are missing out on basic immunisation. Now, the impact of coronavirus means even more children are at risk.

Help every child access lifesaving jabs

Just £30 could pay for a course of vaccines, to protect a child from measles, pneumonia, and other deadly diseases.
Najma holds her baby sister Tufah inside her home. Photo: Hanna Adcock / Save the Children

Najma holds her baby sister Tufah inside her home. Photo: Hanna Adcock / Save the Children

Najma's story

“Healthy children can do everything.” - Najma, 10, Ethiopia. 

Najma lives with her parents and seven siblings in a village where the nearest health clinic is hours away. Thanks to people like you, Najma and her sister Tufah have had vaccinations. 

But 190,000 children in Ethiopia die every year before their fifth birthday - many because they can't access simple jabs and antibiotics. 

THE JOURNEY OF A VACCINE

Help us reach more children

Vaccines don’t just save lives

They give communities the chance to thrive. Find out four things you didn’t know about vaccines, that show the powerful impact of this small intervention.

Whether or not a child gets vaccinated depends on the country they're born in, their parents’ income, and whether they live close to a major city. 

That’s why we work in remote areas around the world training healthcare workers to vaccinate the children most in need. And vitally, we campaign to make sure that money and systems are in place to make vaccines available for everyone who needs one.

The right vaccines and equipment

It’s crucial that the correct vaccines, and the equipment used to store them, are made available to everyone, especially in rural and remote areas.

While governments are paying towards research and development (R&D) to help, it’s not doing enough to ensure that the right vaccination products are available to everyone, including children, in low-income countries.

The companies making the vaccines have a key role to play, but there’s also a need for more public investment and better systems in place that will work harder for countries with fewer resources.

Success can happen. We’ve seen it with the MenAfriVac® vaccine. This provides a low-cost, tailor-made vaccine against meningitis A, and was developed specifically for sub-Saharan Africa.

Fighting Pneumonia

Vaccines play an incredibly important role in this battle. 

Progress has already been made in getting pneumonia vaccines to children in some of the world’s poorest countries – thanks to the support of the UK and other wealthy countries.

But there’s still a long way to go: pneumonia vaccines simply aren’t available to many of the children who need them most.

That includes many children in middle-income countries with poor populations. These countries must pay higher prices for the vaccines – but we need to make sure they invest in the vaccines and their delivery.

The UK government, alongside the global community, must help make sure there are more vaccine suppliers so that prices fall, and the countries that need them, can afford them.

Find out more about how we're tackling pneumonia here.

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