Jim Dobbin visits Bangladesh to mark World Pneumonia Day 2011

Jim Dobbin with other UK parliamentarians visit Bangladesh to mark World Pneumonia Day 2011

To mark World Pneumonia Day, Heywood and Middleton MP, Jim Dobbin, travelled to Dhaka last week to lead a senior parliamentary delegation to see firsthand how UK aid to the developing world is helping to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people.

Mr Dobbin, who is Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Global Action Against Childhood Pneumonia was joined by Malcolm Bruce MP, Chairman of the Select Committee for International Development; Ivan Lewis MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development and Lord Sheikh, Vice-Chairman of the Bangladesh APPG to see how UK support is helping to tackle some of the most devastating diseases affecting the developing world.

The parliamentarians spent their time in the country visiting urban and rural hospitals as well as slum districts and speaking with UK officials; the Bangladeshi Government and medics and organisations on the ground to assess the impact that UK Aid is having. In particular the group were looking at the work of the GAVI Alliance, a global public-private health partnership, who provide funding support to developing country governments to enable them to roll out life-saving vaccines.

Earlier this year, the UK Government pledged an additional GBP 814 million to support GAVI, which has helped immunise 288 million children and saved an estimated five million lives since 2000. The organisation is looking to immunise more than 250 million children from 2011-2015 and save over 4 million additional lives.

The MPs saw this work firsthand when they visited an immunisation clinic in a Dhaka slum, watching as nurses vaccinated children with the life-saving pentavalent vaccine, supplied by the GAVI Alliance, which offers protection from five diseases (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b).

Jim Dobbin commented: “This visit has helped to show exactly how UK funding is helping to supply vital vaccines against some of the world’s biggest killers. 55,000 children in Bangladesh die each year from pneumonia and many of these deaths can be prevented through the use of simple and effective vaccines. It was extremely encouraging to see that UK money has made theses vaccines available in Bangladesh and that more are expected to be rolled out in the future to save even more young lives.”

Bangladesh is looking to expand its vaccine programme and is expected to apply to the GAVI Alliance in 2012 for financial support to introduce the pneumococcal vaccine, which offers protection from one of the leading causes of pneumonia. Pneumonia is the biggest killer of children globally and since 2010, 16 GAVI-eligible countries have introduced pneumococcal vaccine with the Alliance’s support.

The delegation timed their visit to the Bangladeshi capital to mark the 12 November World Pneumonia Day -- an awareness-raising event organised by the Global Coalition Against Pneumonia.

“The World Pneumonia Day Coalition is a fantastic group of organisations coming together to raise the profile of this disease which has a staggering impact in the developing world,” said Mr Dobbin.