The massive expansion of vaccine coverage since the mid-1980s - from 25% to 80% of the developing world's children - has depended heavily on vaccines paid for by international aid. But 20 developing countries pay their own vaccine bills. They include three very large, poor countries, China, Egypt, and Indonesia. A further 15 nations pay over half of their own vaccine costs.

Over 100 million infants a year need immunizing against six diseases. Although vaccines are a relatively small proportion of total immunization costs, vaccine self-sufficiency is an indicator of the priority attached to immunization, and therefore of the sustainability of programmes.

The tables below rank 58 nations, representing nearly 80% of the developing world's children, according to the proportion of routine childhood vaccine costs borne by government.

Photo: Vaccine independence - a test of strength for immunization programmes.©

Paying the whole vaccine bill

Brazil	Indonesia	Peru
Chile	Iran	South Africa
China	Jamaica	Syria
Dominican Rep.	Mexico	Tunisia
Ecuador	Morocco	Uruguay
Egypt	Oman	Venezuela
Guatemal	Panama	Paraguay

Paying part of vaccine bill

% of routine immunization costs paid by government in 1995

	%		%
Colombia	99	Philippines	70
Argentina	98	Bolivia	65
India	97	Nicaragua	61
Pakistan	97	Burkina Faso	54
Botswana	89	Nepal	27
Costa Rica	89	Viet Nam	25
Bangladesh	84	Ghana	24
Cote d'Ivoire	80	Guinea-Bissau	23
Sri Lanka	80	Zambia	10
Zimbabwe	80	Tanzania	6
Honduras	79

Paying none of vaccine bill

Benin	Iraq*	Somalia
Bhutan	Kenya	Sudan
Cambodia	Liberia	Togo
Congo	Mauritania	Uganda
Ethiopia	Mozambique
Haiti	Sierra Leone

* Iraq was paying for all vaccines before the war in the Persian Gulf.

SOURCE UNICEF field offices and WHO, January 1996.