New studies show that nations in Africa and the Americas which have introduced the new vaccine against rotavirus are seeing child deaths from diarrhea drop by more than 60 percent. Yet half a million kids under 5 still die from this particularly lethal, and preventable, form of diarrhea – every year. Worldwide, diarrhea kills more children than any other disease, after pneumonia.
"A disease that may be a nuisance in the U.S. can be a killer in a poorer country."
— Dr. Kathleen Neuzil, senior advisor for immunization at PATH.
Find out where GAVI provides the rotavirus vaccine.
Almost every child in the world suffers from rotavirus, which causes a severe form of diarrhea, at least once before they reach the age of 5. Even in the United States, this virus sends 55,000 infants to the hospital each year. While many forms of diarrhea can be prevented by public health improvements such as clean drinking water and better sanitation and hygiene, this is not true of rotavirus. As with pneumococcal disease, the only true solution is prevention through vaccination.
For healthy children with access to good medical care, this disease is rarely fatal. But in Africa, Asia and Latin America, rotavirus kills more than half a million children every year…that’s more than 1500 children a day. Until recently, nothing could be done to prevent this disease. Now that has changed. Two of the largest clinical trials in medical history showed that the new rotavirus vaccines are safe and effective. Since 2006, when one of these vaccines was introduced in the U.S., the number of hospitalizations and emergency room visits due to rotavirus has declined dramatically.
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