The Economic Case for Expanding Vaccination

Best Practice Paper

By Till Bärnighausen, David E. Bloom, David Canning, Abigail Friedman, Orin Levine, Jennifer O'Brien, Lois Privor-Dumm and Damian Walker

While childhood vaccination programs, such as WHO’s Expanded Program on Immunization, have had a dramatic impact on child morbidity and mortality worldwide, lack of coverage with several existing vaccines is responsible for large numbers of child deaths each year, mostly in developing countries. According to WHO estimates, increased coverage of three vaccines alone could have prevented one and a half million deaths in children under five years in 2002