Every year, almost one million children under five years of age die of pneumonia for which a preventable vaccine exists, but is too expensive for many developing countries. Most of pneumonia victims are less than 2 years old and most of those preventable deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Children with HIV-AIDS are particularly vulnerable to pneumonia.
In the GRAN March Update, we shared GRAN’s plan to work closely with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to increase access to life-saving pneumococcal vaccine and we are working feverishly to get ready. But you can add your voice to MSF right now. Today MSF launched their campaign asking for everyone’s help to join their call and #AskPharma to price the vaccine at $5 per child in all developing countries.
Here is what you can do:
1. Go to http://afairshot.msf.org and ENTER E-MAIL to SIGN UP FOR CAMPAIGN UPDATES at top of page right hand corner;
2. Share this information and the above link with family, friends, acquaintances and invite them to do same;
3. If you have a twitter account, at http://afairshot.msf.org click on TWEET@GSK and @Pfizer , or the twitter sign (bird) under any of the images on MSF site to send a tweet. You can also follow GRAN on twitter;
4. If you do not have a twitter account and would like to be part of the action, it could not be easier. Go to https://twitter.com/signup and fill in the form to sign up. As soon as you have a twitter account you can send tweets from the MSF website. For more help with twitter, check out http://grandmothersadvocacy.org/advocacy-tips/how-to-use-twitter
Let’s give children with HIV/AIDS a Fair Shot against deadly pneumonia. One voice can speak for thousands.
