Global perspectives on vaccine financing.

Despite the great promise of immunization and recent progress in immunizing children throughout the developing world, a global crisis in vaccine R&D, supply and delivery is faced. This article reviews how the global US6 billion dollars vaccine market is structured and its attractiveness to vaccine suppliers, the international two-tiered pricing system in which high-income countries generate about 82% of vaccine revenues but represent only 12% of the doses, the impact of schedule divergence as high-income and developing countries introduce different vaccines, the role of the US government, and possible approaches to ameliorate the crisis.