A Handful Of 'Antipoverty' Vaccines Exist For Neglected Diseases, But The World's Poorest Billion People Need More

So-called neglected tropical diseases are the most common infections of the world's poor. Almost all of the "bottom billion"-the 1.4 billion people who live below the poverty level defined by the World Bank-suffer from one or more neglected diseases including hookworm infection, sleeping sickness, or Chagas disease. These diseases are actually a cause of poverty because of their adverse effects on child growth and development and worker productivity. Vaccines to combat such diseases have come to be known as "antipoverty vaccines." Unfortunately, the recent surge in the development and delivery of vaccines to combat the major childhood killers-such as pneumococcal pneumonia and measles-has bypassed neglected diseases. Nevertheless, some vaccines for these neglected diseases are now entering the clinical pipeline. In this article I describe how some antipoverty vaccine development is proceeding and offer recommendations for stimulating further development such as through pooled funding for innovation, developing-country manufacturers, and public-private partnerships for product development.