NextDayBetter’s pneumonia awareness: Helping the homeland one meaningful action at a time

NextDayBetter and Doctors Without Borders are calling on pharmaceutical companies to reduce the price of pneumonia vaccine in the Philippines and other developing countries.

NextDayBetter and Doctors Without Borders are calling on pharmaceutical companies to reduce the price of pneumonia vaccine in the Philippines and other developing countries.

Pneumonia is the leading cause of childhood death in the Philippines. There is a vaccine to prevent the disease, but at about $45 per child, the price charged to the government by pharmaceutical company Pfizer, this price may become unsustainable in the future.

NextDayBetter, a storytelling platform for diaspora communities, has joined Doctors Without Borders’s efforts to encourage pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – the sole manufacturers of the pneumonia vaccine – to reduce the price of the vaccine to $5 dollars per child in the Philippines and all other developing countries.

The pneumonia vaccine is the world’s best-selling vaccine, and last year alone, Pfizer brought in more than $6 billion dollars in sales just for this product. At the lowest global prices, which the Philippines cannot access, it is now 68 times more expensive to vaccinate a child than in 2001, according to a 2015 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report, “The Right Shot: Bringing down Barriers to Affordable and Adapted Vaccines.”

After years of “fruitless negotiations” with Pfizer and GSK to lower the vaccine’s price, MSF launched in 2015 the “Fair Shot” campaign to ask Pfizer and GSK to reduce the price of the pneumonia vaccine to $5 per child for all three needed doses.

“Due to the high price charged by the companies, many countries where millions of children risk getting pneumonia simply can’t afford it, and for countries such as the Philippines the high price threatens sustainability of the vaccination program,” said Dr. Greg Elder, Medical Coordinator for MSF’s Access Campaign.

NextDayBetter is hoping to amplify the “Fair Shot” campaign and make the pneumonia vaccine more accessible to millions of children in the Philippines.

“Our role at NextDayBetter is to inspire a grassroots movement/action to get everyday Filipinos to understand why pneumonia is a critical issue in the Philippines and take action,” CEO Ryan Letada told The FilAm. “We’ve already seen some success. Pharmaceutical company, GSK has already lowered the price attributing it to our campaign. We need Pfizer to do the same.”

NextDayBetter CEO Ryan Letada: Filipino healthcare professionals are ‘influential and critical  as a community’

NextDayBetter CEO Ryan Letada: Filipino healthcare professionals are ‘influential and critical as a community’

Three weeks ago, explained Francois Servranckx of Doctors Without Borders, GSK announced it was reducing the price of the pneumonia vaccine by 10 percent for Gavi the Vaccine Alliance. “The new price is now $3.05 per dose (for a total of $9.15 per kid for all three doses), instead of $3.40 per dose. It was our first victory,” he told The FilAm.

He continued: “This is a step into the right direction, considering that this is the first time in years that GSK reduces the price of the vaccine for the poorest countries, but this is still a fairly limited decrease. We at MSF are asking for a price of $5 per child for all three doses and it’s only limited to countries supported by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.” Gavi is an international organization calling for equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries.

NextDayBetter will be launching a storytelling campaign that humanizes the people affected by this issue and highlights the work of Filipinos who are dedicated to improving the quality of public health in the Philippines, said Letada.

The campaign will be launching on NextDayBetter’s multimedia platforms with the intent of “inspiring and empowering the Philippine diaspora to take action in effecting change in their homeland.”

“The Philippine diaspora is overflowing with incredibly talented nurses, doctors, and other leaders in public health who have pioneered breakthroughs in healthcare. We have saved so many people around the world – now we need to focus on our own community back home,” Letada said in comments emailed to The FilAm.

The multimedia campaign focuses on pneumonia, and not other ailments like diabetes or hypertension, which are also common in the Philippines.

“Pneumonia is a leading cause of childhood mortality in the Philippines, especially for children under 5 years old. Dropping the price of pneumonia vaccination can help make it more accessible,” he said.

Letada said the partnership between MSF and NextDayBetter is a recognition of NDB as a global community of influencers. “They wanted to collaborate to harness the creative potential of the Filipino diaspora.”

He added that Doctors Without Borders recognizes the Filipino diaspora as a source of world-class healthcare professionals (nurses, doctors, physical therapy) and public health community organizers.

“Without Filipino healthcare professionals, the global healthcare system would implode – that’s how influential and critical we are as a community,” said Letada.

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