Wealthy Nations Announce Plan to Develop and Pay for Vaccines

ROME, Feb. 9 — Officials from a handful of wealthy nations initiated a long-awaited plan on Friday to support and finance the development of vaccines for children in poorer countries, and to purchase the vaccine once it is produced.

The first phase of the program, which is called the Advance Market Commitment, will cover the pneumococcal vaccine, a shot that is effective at preventing deadly pneumonia in children. It is not well suited for use in the developing world because it is expensive and, in its current version, does not protect against some strains common in poor countries.

The program, to be financed through donations from the governments, will cost $1.5 billion and is expected to prevent 5.4 million deaths among children by 2030, according to the World Bank and GAVI, the global vaccine fund that provided technical assistance. A pneumococcal vaccine for children has been widely used in the United States and other developed nations since the late 1990s.