The Sick Kids

Almost nine million children die each year before their fifth birthday. Pneumonia and diarrhoea kill more children under the age of five than any other illnesses, accounting for three times more deaths than malaria and HIV combined. Annually, 1.6 million children under five die of pneumonia and 1.3 million succumb to diarrhoeal diseases. Almost all of these deaths occur in developing countries.

"For every child who dies from pneumonia - the most common form of serious pneumococcal disease - in rich countries, 2,000 die from pneumonia in developing countries. This is not acceptable," says Helen Evans, the interim CEO of GAVI Alliance (formerly known as Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation)

In wealthy countries, few children die from rotaviral diarrhoea because of ready access to health care services and over-the-counter treatment, and because well-nourished children are less susceptible in the first place. In developing countries, however, rotavirus can be lethal - especially if children have a weakened immune system because they are malnourished. The problem is further compounded if they have limited or no access to health care.

GAVI plans to immunise 240 million additional children in the next five years, saving four million lives. However, a funding crisis is looming. Out of over 45 countries which have been identified for the roll-out of pneumonia and diarrhoea vaccines, only 19 have had funding secured.

"Just when we are on the brink of a breakthrough against these two major child killers, the cash is running out. Without it children will continue to die on a scale, and from causes, that would be unimaginable in the developed world," warns Justin Forsyth, the chief executive of Save the Children.

Even at a discounted price, the vaccines are expensive to roll out for many countries. Imagine the scenario for countries like Burundi where the total per capita government health expenditure is just one US dollar, or in Sierra Leone where it stands at four US dollars. This makes the cost of pneumonia vaccine look phenomenal in context - even at its lowest subsidised price of 10 cents - and a costly purchase to countries already grappling with deep-rooted poverty.

In addition to the funding issue, countries are already restricted by their ability to distribute the vaccines; there is no point having new vaccines without the sufficient trained health workers to administer them, or the facilities to store them. According to WHO estimates there is a critical shortage of 3.5 million health workers in the poorest countries, without whom millions of children will face illness and early death. Doctors, midwives, nurses and community health workers form the vital backbone of the health services and without them, life-saving measures cannot be put in place. Without them, essential vaccines cannot be delivered.

There really is no reason why society could not provide for, care for and value all children, but capitalist society doesn’t. This is a society that allows innocent children to die in their thousands every day; If not by allowing them to slowly starve to death or die of easily cured diseases, then by literally blowing them apart.
The sincerity and sacrifice of charity workers is legendary, but from a socialist perspective charity is worse than useless. In 2003 the Socialist Standard reported that The United States effectively blocked agreement on a global pact to allow poor countries to buy cheap drugs to tackle epidemics such as Aids, malaria and tuberculosis and the big powers were accused of being driven by the interests of their pharmaceutical firms rather than by humanitarian considerations.
If, in protecting their profits, drug firms condemn millions of children to an early grave; well, that is just the logic of the market place. But while human beings are prepared to accept a system that values profit and business interests before children then we can expect to go on hearing of dying children all over the world until we become so numb to the awfulness that we begin to believe that it is a natural state of affairs and accept it with no more thought than the sunrise at the start of the day. The solution lies not in trying to transfer money from the rich to the poor but in abolishing the money system altogether.