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NEWS > HEALTH > BIG PHARMA OFFERING BUDGET VACCINES TO POOR CHILDREN
BIG PHARMA OFFERING BUDGET VACCINES TO POOR CHILDREN
June 18 2011
Dodoma, Tanzania – For most people in the west getting sick is not that big of a deal. You get to stay home from work or school and lay in bed all day, plied with medication purchased from your local drug store. For most people in those countries 
the greatest obstacle to getting better is gathering the energy to wait around to see a doctor, and then wait to be reimbursed by your insurance company. In a few days, illness is all but a memory.
Not everyone has that type of access however, in fact the majority of the world’s population doesn’t have any kind of access to medication at all. The majority of the world’s population still lives in relative poverty, either in developing nation or in rural areas where access to advanced medical care is nonexistent. That lack of access leads to millions of deaths a year, generally in young children. Diseases which could be readily treated with over-the-counter medication in Europe or North America are death sentences in much of the world, a reality which has prompted calls for cheaper medications to the people who need them the most. After decades of trying, big drug companies are finally responding to those calls, offering cheaper drugs to developing countries, drugs which for the most part don’t work nearly as well, but are much cheaper.
“There’s been this battle in recent years between big pharma and smaller start-ups. The smaller companies have been able to offer lower prices and have gained a foothold in poorer countries as a result, which has prompted the larger companies to push down their prices in hopes of gaining market share in those nations,” said a Tanzanian 
government official. “This has resulted in some fantastic prices which really does help. By having this competition, poorer people are for the first time being treated for diseases that would normally kill them. WE are seeing reductions in the neighbourhood of 95 per cent which is something we could not have dreamt of a few years ago.”
GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are two of the most prominent price cutters in the country, offering big discounts on vaccines against rotavirus, hepatitis B, influenza and other ailments. Most of the drugs reportedly work.
“Obviously in a dream world people here would have access to the same medications that people in America have, but for the most part people are willing to live with not having the brand name. That is not what they would prefer, but sometimes we have to live with what we can get,” continued the official. “With the introduction of these drugs we expect to see far fewer children dying of things like diarrhoea which is a good thing. We still have issues with children having their arms cut off after receiving the inoculations, which of course does little to stop the spread of the vaccine, but overall it has been a great advance.”
Cutting off arms generally doesn’t stop diffusion of vaccine into the bloodstream but does generally discourage participation.
“This has really been a long time in coming. There are curable diseases killing people by the thousands every day in many of these countries and now they are finally letting
access to the drugs which can save their lives. Unfortunately because they have knocked the prices down so low we likely won’t be seeing drug stores in any of these countries, which still makes them dependent on aid, but at least it will prevent deaths,” said Scrape TV Health analyst Rebecca Phelps. “I mean it won’t prevent all deaths of course. If you’ve ever shopped at one of those no-name places you’ll understand why. Sometimes the stuff is fine, and sometimes it’s pretty awful but it’s almost never as good as the brand name. And forget about buying fresh fruit at those places, don’t even try. Or cheese, or bread. They just can’t get that stuff right.”
Nike and Coca-Cola have long been supporters of low-cost medication.
Lauren Hebert, Health Correspondent
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