Alliance starts pneumonia vaccine project for poor

Alliance starts pneumonia vaccine project for poor

A new vaccine against the most deadly forms of pneumonia, one of the world’s biggest killers of children, will be launched in Nicaragua from Sunday as part of an effort to prevent 700,000 deaths in poorer countries by 2015.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) said Nicaragua would be the first developing nation to begin vaccinating children with the pneumococcal shots, made by drugmakers Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, and another 18 countries will follow in the next few years.

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