In Malaria World this week there is a press release from GAVI about Mozambique introducing malaria vaccines into routine immunisation. GAVI describes the vaccine as lifesaving and a critical step forward to revitalize the fight against malaria and improve children’s survival.
The vaccine introduced in the childhood vaccination schedule in Mosambique is the same R21 vaccine that I examined earlier and is only safe and effective when compared with an Indian Rabies vaccine. There was no trial with a true harmless placebo. It beggars belief that Mozambique thinks it is improving the life of its infants by facilitating this programme.
In its own words Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. The full list of donor governments and other leading organisations that fund Gavi’s work is available on its website, www.gavi.org.
Since its inception in 2000, Gavi claims to have helped to immunise a whole generation – over 1 billion children – and prevented more than 17.3 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 78 lower-income countries. Gavi also claims to play a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningococcal and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation, above all the zero-dose children who have not received even a single vaccine shot! The Vaccine Alliance employs innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency.
I like many others was awakened to the dangers of vaccines by the overreach during the COVID pandemic. My greatest regret now is that I allowed my children to have all the prescribed childhood vaccines without questions. They have not been subject to proper placebo-controlled trials and target diseases whose prevalence was already decreasing as a result of improvements in water and food supply and sanitation.
And now it seems that because of the increasing scepticism in the west, GAVI and other poison pushers are redoubling their efforts in the Global South.