NPR

When Countries Get Wealthier, Kids Can Lose Out On Vaccines

Childhood vaccines are often subsidized in the poorest countries. But not for those moving up the wealth ladder.
Mothers and their babies in Nigeria wait at a health center that provides vaccinations against polio. Vaccination rates lag in the middle-income country.

You'd think that as a poor country grows wealthier, more of its children would get vaccinated for preventable diseases such as polio, measles and pneumonia.

But a review published in Nature this month offers a different perspective.

"The countries that are really poor get a lot of support for the vaccinations. The countries that are really rich can afford to pay for the vaccines anyway," says , director of the at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and author of the review.

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