This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Administrator J. Brian Atwood
Partnership for Child Health Press Conference
Washington, D.C., March 10, 1998
U.S. Agency for International Development
I'm delighted to join these distinguished colleagues here today as we
celebrate a new partnership that will reinvigorate the campaign to stop this cruel
killer of newborns, neonatal tetanus.
They have told you a lot about the disease. I want to tell you a little
about the history of the technology that will help defeat this disease.
USAID has long supported research on better ways to prevent and control
disease in the developing world. We were working on new vaccines, but to
fully realize the potential of vaccines to prevent diseases like neonatal tetanus,
we needed new delivery technology as well to ensure safer immunizations under
difficult field conditions.
Why does USAID get involved in the development of health technology?
The unique combination of conditions in developing countries often
means they have a desperate need for affordable, simple-to-use devices to
improve the delivery of health care and family planning services.
Unfortunately, traditional manufacturers often anticipate little chance of
recovering the costs of developing such products, and have limited experience
with the special constraints of providing health services in these countries.
USAID knows the needs and the problems. By investing in the initial
stages of developing new products to meet these needs, we can then turn to
American industry to further refine the product and then to market them on a
sustainable basis.
We began working with Gordon Perkin -- who will be on the panel that
follows -- and his colleagues at PATH (the Program for Appropriate
Technology in Health), to design and develop such devices. USAID has
invested more than $2 million over the last 11 years on this project.
PATH has been an invaluable partner in our efforts to devise new health
technologies to address the special needs of developing countries. These
include the vaccine vial monitor, which shows whether vaccine has been
exposed to heat and should be discarded.
To fight against neonatal tetanus and other developing world diseases,
PATH and USAID devised UNIJECT and Becton-Dickinson is now
manufacturing it. UNIJECT is an innovative new injection device that is pre-filled with the exact dosage of vaccine or medication. UNIJECT also contains
a one-way valve to prevent re-use of the needle. This makes the whole process of immunization easier, quicker and safer for both patients and health workers.
The "Partnership for Child Health" announced today is an important new
step in the fight to stop neonatal tetanus and to increase awareness of the
importance of safe injections. USAID will continue to work with our partners
WHO, NCIH (National Council for International Health) and UNICEF, in
combatting neonatal tetanus as we now implement the use of UNIJECT in the
field.
Health workers often must travel long distances to isolated villages on
foot to administer timely immunizations and medications. Protecting babies
from neonatal tetanus requires that women receive at least two immunizations,
spaced at least two months apart, to provide their newborns the protection
babies need for the first two months of life. Without these immunizations --
and clean conditions during childbirth -- newborns living in poverty often die
within days or even hours of birth.
UNIJECT will not only be beneficial in its immediate uses, such as to
deliver tetanus vaccine, but opens up new possibilities for working out ways to
expand health care services to those who have been left out.
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has a special interest in maternal and
child health. She asked me to read this message to you from her:
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
MESSAGE FOR BECTON-DICKINSON/UNICEF ANNOUNCEMENT
MARCH 10, 1998
I wish I could be with you today as you celebrate the beginning of a
partnership between Becton-Dickinson and UNICEF aimed at ending neonatal
tetanus deaths worldwide. The U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) has pioneered the technology to make this possible by providing the
initial funding to develop the UNIJECT single-shot vaccine mechanism.The
terrible scourge of neonatal tetanus kills hundreds of thousands of newborns
every year -- lives that could be saved through vaccinations of mothers and
their babies and greater cleanliness during the childbirth process. Becton-Dickinson's commitment -- and USAID's public-private partnership -- will
dramatically bolster efforts already underway to eliminate neonatal tetanus, as
well as increase public awareness of the important role safe injections play in
quality health care.
Neonatal tetanus remains a problem among the hardest to reach
populations in the developing world -- mothers and children poorly served by
the conventional health system. Vaccinating these women and children will be simpler and safer for village healthcare workers using UNIJECT devices pre-filled with tetanus vaccine. This device, developed by USAID and PATH, will
now go into large-scale production by Becton-Dickinson.
In 1989, the World Health Assembly called for the elimination of
neonatal tetanus as a public health problem by the year 1995. Much progress
has been made, and tetanus has been eliminated as a serious threat to the lives
of infants in over 100 countries. Unfortunately, three years after victory over
this disease should have been declared, neonatal tetanus is still killing thousands
of newborns and their mothers in almost 60 countries.
The partnership we celebrate today among Becton-Dickinson, UNICEF,
WHO and USAID, will reinvigorate the effort to prevent neonatal tetanus
deaths. By providing technical assistance to nations most affected by this
disease, as well as by making products such as the UNIJECT system affordable
and available throughout the developing world, Becton-Dickinson is making an
important contribution to a global effort to eliminate neonatal tetanus. This
effort will give children around the world a better chance for a healthy start in
life.
The President and I commend your efforts and thank you for the
commitments you make today. With best wishes, I remain
Yours sincerely,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 18, 2001
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