The Funders of the ARIVAC Project
International Cooperation at DG Research, European Commission
The main funder of the ARIVAC Project is the INCO Programme (International Co-operation) at DG Research, European Commission. The ongoing funding is the third agreement which the EC has granted the ARIVAC project since 1996.
Children's Vaccination Programme (CVP) at Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH)
Children's Vaccination Programme (CVP) at Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) funds the data management of the ARIVAC project to meet the international requirements for clinical trials. CVP also covers the Finnish study physician at the study site, infrastructure support, as well as the two sub-studies nested into the main effectiveness study: Herd immunity and Cost efficacy. CVP pledged its support to ARIVAC for 5 years. Its website may be reached at http://www.childrensvaccine.org/
The Development Cooperation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
The Development Cooperation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland is also supporting the ARIVAC trial both through its bilateral and nongovernmental agency funds.
The Bilateral Agreement between the Governments of the Philippines and Finland was signed on May, 2000 and will run for three years. The aim of the agreement is to introduce new ARI vaccines into the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) of the DOH-Philippines. The activities include, among other things, EPI and ARI health education and promotion, establishing a cold chain infrastructure to support the vaccine trial, and piloting of a monitoring system for adverse events following immunization (AEFI) in the Philippines.
The non-governmental funds were obtained via collaboration with the Finnish Physicians for Social Responsibility http://www.kaapeli.fi/~lsv/yhdistys.asp and covered the preparatory period of the trial from 1997 to 2000. The objective was to train local lay community and professional staff in vaccines, clinical trials, and pneumonia-related issues as well as provide for the infrastructure needed to run such a trial.
Academy Finland
The Academy of Finland ( http://www.aka.fi) aims to develop and apply new non-standard methodologies to the statistical analyses of data accrued in the ARIVAC vaccine trial. The Academy previously supported the preparatory phase of the trial during years 1996-2000.
The Vaccines and Biologicals division of the WHO
The Vaccines and Biologicals Division of the WHO ( http://www.who.int/en/) supports the trial via its ongoing grant to the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) of the ARIVAC trial, and its technical assistance to the radiological diagnosis of the primary endpoint of the trial. Previously, WHO also supported the phase II preparatory work on analysis of the nasopharyngeal carriage reduction as a result of vaccination with the new pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. This grant covers the period of 1999-2002.