The Lancet Infectious Disease
Feb 2011  Volume 11 Number 2  Pages 73 – 152
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/issue/current

Editorial
A new market to save lives from pneumococcal disease
The Lancet Infectious Diseases

Pneumonia is the world’s leading killer of children younger than 5 years, and is one of the foremost vaccine-preventable killers of children today. Every year, pneumococcal disease kills about 1 million children worldwide. Children younger than 5 years in low-income countries are 89 times more likely to die from pneumococcal disease than are children in high-income countries. In Nicaragua, 20% of children who get pneumococcal disease die, compared with a global average of 18%. Through introduction of an innovative financing mechanism called advance market commitment (AMC), developed by the GAVI Alliance, Nicaragua became the first developing country to introduce a new 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine in December last year, just months after the vaccine was made available in the USA.