JEDDAH, 13 June 2007 — Diseases that can be prevented by vaccination are responsible for more than two million infant deaths each year and cause the death of more than 8,000 children every day worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Despite the leaps made in modern medicine for treating such complicated diseases as cancer and heart disease, humans remain helpless in preventing some preventable infectious diseases simply for the lack of vaccination programs especially in developing countries.
In 2005, more than 28 million infants were not immunized for DTP3 (diptheria-tetanus-pertussis) with the largest percentage of them being in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the WHO.
“A comprehensive immunization program would help in effectively reducing the mortality rate gap,” said Dr. Razley Mohammed Nordin, director of the Science and Technology Department at the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
“This has been proven by the declining number of infectious diseases such as polio, whooping cough and tetanus among children in countries where immunization programs are available,” he said.
The OIC’s first Health Ministerial Conference to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this week under the theme “Health: The Impetus Towards Islamic Solidarity” will discuss and propose a policy strategy to reduce the infant mortality rate caused by vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, particularly small pox and polio.
The conference will also propose research and development programs leading to a system that ensures that all vaccine producers from OIC countries obtain the prequalification status from the WHO; promotes technology transfer from OIC countries that are capable in vaccine development and production; develop public-health research and development through training and collaboration; and improve the monitoring of infectious diseases among children under five years of age.
Other issues on the conference’s agenda include discussions on combating malaria in the OIC countries; women and child health; preparing OIC countries for pandemic human influenza; and financing health programs in OIC countries.
The sessions also include discussions of current topics of international concern, such as tobacco addiction; intravenous drug abuse, which can spread blood-borne diseases like hepatitis and AIDS; herbal medicines and natural products; and bio-terrorism vaccines.
The Kuala Lumpur 2007 Health Conference is a followup to the proposals made during the last meeting of the program established by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) titled “Self-Reliance in Vaccine Production (SRVP) in the Islamic World” of which all OIC vaccine-producing countries are members.
The 8th OIC Summit in Tehran, Iran, in December 1997 had adopted a strategy presented by the IDB with the aim of modernizing the health care systems of OIC member countries. This strategy focused on education, health and human resource development and trade among Islamic countries.
Following that, the IDB established the SRVP program group which meets annually to discuss current issues and problems, share knowledge and expertise and explore possibilities of technology transfer among its members. One of the main objectives of the SRVP meetings is to standardize and modernize vaccine-manufacturing facilities to abide by WHO standards.