The Director General of the International Vaccine Institute, Jerome H. Kim, says funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been central in advancing work on diseases that traditional drug companies often ignore due to low financial returns.
In a radio interview on Wednesday, Kim said global pharmaceutical markets tend to prioritise conditions that promise high profits, leaving illnesses affecting Africa and other low-income regions under-researched. He said this gap has led to what he termed “market failure vaccines”, where institutions like IVI step in to push development, testing, and delivery partnerships so that vaccines can reach countries most in need.
He added that global collaboration has already led to major results, pointing out that close to 250 million oral cholera vaccine doses have been rolled out worldwide. He said these efforts show how affordable vaccines can transform public health response in vulnerable regions.
Kim noted that some of these vaccines are produced at very low cost, around Sh129 per dose, making them more accessible to governments with limited health budgets. He said the economic benefit is clear when comparing prevention and treatment costs.
“For every dollar you spend on a vaccine, you save 50 dollars in healthcare costs,” he explained.
He further said that investment in immunisation programmes can reduce health spending by nearly Sh6,450 for every Sh129 used, making vaccines one of the most efficient health interventions available to countries.
Kim emphasized that low pricing is intentional to ensure wider reach in developing nations where disease outbreaks can spread quickly and overwhelm health systems.
“That’s the kind of vaccine that has tremendous impact, because a safe and efficacious vaccine made at low cost, approved by the World Health Organization, can be purchased and used in low and middle-income countries,” he noted.
The IVI director pointed to schistosomiasis, also known in Kenya as bilharzia, as one of the diseases still receiving focused vaccine research support. He said the illness remains common in western Kenya and lake regions, affecting communities exposed to contaminated water, with women and girls among the most affected groups.
He explained that IVI is supporting progress on a schistosomiasis vaccine originally developed at the University of Texas, which is now moving through advanced human testing stages.
“It’s taken decades to get that vaccine out of the laboratory into manufacturing and now into testing in humans,” he stated.
Kim said one of the biggest barriers in developing such vaccines is the lack of interest from major pharmaceutical firms, which tend to avoid projects that do not promise strong financial returns.
“No big company in the West wants to make a vaccine against schistosomiasis because they’re thinking, ‘This isn’t going to be a vaccine that makes us enough money to justify the work,’” he stated.
He also highlighted continued work on hepatitis E, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, noting that the disease is particularly dangerous for pregnant women in displacement settings, with death rates estimated between 20 and 40 percent.
Kim said earlier research revealed gaps in global approval processes for an existing vaccine developed in China, prompting renewed collaboration after discussions involving philanthropist Bill Gates.
He further discussed progress on Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, used to prevent cervical cancer. Studies carried out in Thailand, South Africa, and Latin America showed that a single dose can provide protection similar to two doses, leading to a shift in global health guidance.
“That doubles the number of women who can be vaccinated,” Kim highlighted, while warning that vaccine confidence is declining in some regions because younger populations no longer see the impact of diseases that once caused widespread illness. “We’re victims of our own success. When a vaccine makes a disease disappear, we feel that we’ve done our job,” he concluded.