The international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) launched ‘A Fair Shot’ online campaign today on World Pneumonia Day. MSF asks the public in South-East Asian countries to turn their Facebook profile photo red to show support for more affordable pneumonia vaccine for developing countries.

Pneumonia is the leading global cause of childhood death and kills nearly one million children each year. In South-East Asia, pneumonia ranks among the top childhood killers and the burden of the disease is disproportionately high in the region. An effective vaccine to protect children against pneumonia is available, the pneumococcal vaccine (PCV), but is priced out of reach for many low and middle-income countries.

Through this online campaign, MSF asks the public to urge pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to reduce the price of the pneumonia vaccine to US$5 per child (to cover all three doses) in all developing countries and for humanitarian organisations.

After years of fruitless negotiations with both companies to lower the vaccine’s price, MSF is urging the public to help put pressure on the companies.

“The pneumonia vaccine is the world’s best-selling vaccine, and last year, Pfizer brought in more than $4.4 billion in sales just from this product,” said Dr Manica Balasegaram, executive director of MSF’s Access Campaign.

“Pfizer and GSK charge such high prices for the pneumonia vaccine that many governments and humanitarian organisations aren’t able to vaccinate children. After combined sales to date of more than US$28 billion for the pneumonia vaccine alone, we think it’s pretty safe to say that Pfizer and GSK can afford to lower the price so all developing countries can protect their children from this childhood killer.”

In January, MSF released its vaccine pricing report, ‘The Right Shot: Bringing Down Barriers to Affordable and Adapted Vaccines’, which showed that in the poorest countries, with the addition of new vaccines, it is now 68 times more expensive to vaccinate a child than in 2001, with many parts of the world unable to afford new high-priced vaccines like that against pneumonia.

“As doctors who have watched far too many children die from pneumonia, we’re not going to back down until we know that all countries can afford the vaccine,” said Dr Balasegaram.

In May, 193 governments met in Geneva for the annual World Health Assembly, where they unanimously passed a landmark resolution demanding more affordable vaccines and increased transparency around vaccine prices.

The governments of over 50 countries - including Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, Thailand - underlined the rising inequities among them caused by the increased financial burden of new vaccines, with many stating the high price of new vaccines, such as the pneumonia vaccine, either prohibited them from introducing it or threatened their ability to sustain it in their routine immunisation programmes.

“What’s the point of a life-saving vaccine if the most vulnerable people can’t afford it?” asked Dr Balasegaram.