31 Jan The Miracle of Vaccines
At the foundation, I’m surrounded by a lot of people who take unusual pleasure in statistics. But this statistic should impress everybody: Pneumonia kills more kids than AIDS and malaria… Combined.
This week, before Davos, I traveled to Kenya, where the country just started rolling out a new vaccine for pneumonia. I wanted to actually see the difference the vaccine could make in people’s lives.
I got a pretty good idea the second I walked into Mbagathi Hospital in Nairobi. They have about 50 beds — and 200 patients. There is a courtyard attached to the hospital, where mothers and a few fathers cook their meals and sleep while they wait for their children to get better. The doctor showing me around told me that half of their patients come in with pneumonia. The conclusion was obvious: If Kenya does a good job making sure that children get the new pneumococcus vaccine, that by itself will start to alleviate the overcrowding.