HOMELAND SECURITY POLICY INSTITUTE GROUP

Study: New vaccine could be life-saver for children
By wire services
Published March 25, 2005

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A new vaccine could save hundreds of thousands of children each year from dying of pneumonia and related ailments, according to scientists reporting today in a leading medical journal.

The vaccine, tested by a team of researchers in the West African nation of Gambia, was found to reduce overall childhood mortality by 16 percent.

"This vaccine not only prevents disease in kids who were vaccinated, it also interrupts transmission so their parents and grandparents and anyone else they come in contact with are at reduced risk of getting it," said Orin Levine of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who took part in the study.

The study is the first major vaccine trial in nearly 20 years to show a significant reduction in child mortality, he said.

A report on the vaccine trial appears in today's issue of the Lancet, a British medical journal.