With the launch of the GAVI Alliance in 2000, vaccine uptake improved and has continued to improve in developing CH5424802 supplier countries. Vaccination rates against the

six key diseases have increased from around 20% in 1980 to approximately 80% in 2009, and the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases has dropped dramatically [2]. However, beyond the six diseases targeted initially, are a range of infectious diseases that continue to cause high levels of morbidity and mortality in several parts of the world for which vaccines exist or can be developed, if resources are available. Particularly for countries like India, where respiratory infection and diarrhoea each contribute >10% to the mortality burden in young children [3], there is a need for safe, effective and affordable

vaccines for use in the public health system. Investments in vaccine development require an appetite for risk taking and long term investment, given that failures are to be expected in translating academic success to marketable products. An outstanding example of the new world paradigm in affordable, safe and effective vaccine development is the Rotavac vaccine. As with most vaccine candidates, the story began with an academic institution, the All India institute of Medical selleck chemicals llc Sciences (AIIMS), where in the 1980s, M.K. Bhan noticed that a strain of rotavirus produced asymptomatic infections in neonates in the nursery and protected them from subsequent disease. He started an informal joint research program with Roger Glass, who worked initially in Bangladesh and later at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta and at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 1989–1990, they attracted research support from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India and NIH, under the joint Indo-US Vaccine Action Program (VAP),

and went to work on further characterization of this unusual neonatal strain, now known as 116E. The and 116E strain was identified to be a human bovine reassortant, with a bovine derived surface protein. Almost in parallel, another bovine-human reassortant infecting neonates, I321, was described from Bangalore, by Durga Rao of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) working with Harry Greenberg from Stanford University [4]. The NIH contracted with DynCorp to produce clinical-grade pilot lots of the vaccines in 1997 and evaluate those lots in American adults and children prior to shipping them to India. In 1998, the Indo-US VAP solicited commercial partners in India for the next stage of development and identified Bharat Biotech International Ltd. (BBIL), a Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturing company, to develop both vaccine candidates.