Vaccines and immunisation

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.

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.

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.