World News from the BBC.

Five nations are launching a 1.5 billion-dollar fund today in Rome to speed up the development of new vaccines for poor countries. The fund backed by Britain, Canada, Italy, Norway and Russia aims to tackle pneumococcal disease which causes pneumonia and meningitis and kills almost 2 million children a year. For more details from Jane Draper.

Pneumococcal disease is an increasingly urgent health problem. Vaccines against it already exist, but developing countries need specific versions. The new fund will be worth 1.5 billion dollars. The idea is to subsidize the future purchase of a suitable vaccine in the hope this will give companies an incentive to invest in research. Supporters say the fund will be a powerful and costy effective way of creating new market conditions. But some experts believe this finance mechanism could distort research and development in a way which won’t necessarily be affective.

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