SECURE PCV

Experts Agree: Secure PCV!

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.2 in the five years remaining to 2030 will require a roughly one third reduction in global child deaths—from the current 5 million to 3.3 million. The need is most acute in the 60 countries off track to meet the target, including 45 in Africa, as reported by UNICEF. 

With child deaths projected to rise by more than 200,000 in 2025 to 4.8 million, and with global health financing under pressure, urgent action is needed to scale interventions that can reduce child mortality quickly, cost-effectively, and sustainably, especially in the off-track countries.

Expanding coverage of vaccines that prevent pneumonia—the leading infectious killer of children under five—is a critical opportunity. In 2023, pneumonia caused an estimated 610,000 child deaths, with 30% occurring among newborns and 70% among children aged 1–59 months, according to the Global Burden of Disease. 

Although vaccines have driven roughly 40% of the decline in child mortality since 1990, pneumonia vaccines have fallen short of their lifesaving potential due to delayed introduction and low coverage.

Of the 14 vaccines that have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years, pneumonia vaccines account for just 3%—2.85 million lives saved by the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine and 1.6 million by the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV). Yet new estimates indicate that scaling PCV and new Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines to full coverage could prevent 3.4 million child deaths by 2045. 

With PCV coverage at only 67%, far below the IA2030 target of 90%, and no RSV vaccines yet introduced in low- or middle-income countries, closing these gaps could dramatically increase the contribution of pneumonia vaccines to the child mortality reductions required for SDG achievement.

Members

To accelerate sustained high coverage of PCVs, the Experts Agree. Secure PCV! initiative will bring together leading scientific experts in pneumococcal vaccination to share their views on the impact of this vaccine. Content will be distributed directly to policy makers and other decision-making audiences.

Goal 

The group will be guided by an overarching goal:

Increase commitments by countries with no- or low-PCV coverage, to achieve high PCV rates (>90%) by 2030, including by introducing more cost-effective vaccines and vaccine products, and/or switching to reduced schedules (e.g., 1+1).

Countries targeted will include those with more than 1,000 child pneumonia deaths and no PCV, including Egypt (9,057 child pneumonia deaths), Guinea (6,120), China (4,861), Viet Nam (1,947), Venezuela (996). Note Thailand with 390 child pneumonia deaths is also without the PCV.

Additionally, countries with more than 1,000 child pneumonia deaths and PCV coverage rates below 60% will be prioritized, including Nigeria (28% PCV coverage), Angola (42%), Afghanistan (57%, Mozambique (55%).

And finally countries eligible for a reduced two-dose PCV 1+1 schedule because they fulfill the World Health Organization (WHO) requirements outlined below. This includes Kenya, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uganda, and Tanzania. As some of these countries are also well-positioned to introduce RSV maternal  vaccines (e.g., Kenya, Uganda, Pakistan, Bangladesh) our work will address the benefits of shifting to PCV 1+1 alongside the introduction of RSV.