Sixth Global Vaccines Research Forum

Participating over the past four days at the sixth Global Vaccine Research Forum, some 200 of the world's top vaccine scientists, public health experts, regulators and manufacturers from about 40 countries presented their research work and discussed challenges that lie ahead. Public-private partnerships -- a number of which exist for vaccines against tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, meningitis, hookworm, dengue, pneumococcal disease and rotavirus -- are proving to be effective ways to develop vaccines for diseases prevalent in developing countries.According to Dr Donald P. Francis of Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, who gave the keynote address at the Forum:

Optimal success in both developing new vaccines and applying existing ones is still far from guaranteed. The combination of lack of industry interest to make vaccines (often seen as low profit products) and the lack of resources to buy them for less developed countries has severely affected the pipeline for new vaccines and the application of previously licensed ones.