Morning Briefing

In a Huffington Post Blog opinion piece, Orin Levine, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), describes watching the suffering of an infant with severe pneumonia and his parents while in Ghana on Thursday, writing that the experience was "a personal reminder as to why our work to prevent disease is so perilous, and why disease control so promising in Africa." Noting that last year in Ghana, "approximately 50,000 young children -- nearly seven out of every 100 -- died before their fifth birthday," Levine adds, "I also saw the promise of prevention in Ghana," with the launch of an immunization campaign to provide both pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines. With support from the GAVI Alliance, Ghana is the first country in Africa to introduce two new vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhea at the same time," he notes.