$151 billion

Amount that would be saved in treatment costs and lost productivity over a 10-year period if routine vaccines were made available to 90% of the children in the world's poorest 72 countries. Reporting in a special issue of The Lancet and Health Affairs, researchers project that the total global economic benefit would equal $231 billion. That far outstrips the cost of providing childhood vaccinations against pneumococcal pneumonia, Hib disease, diphtheria, pertussis, whooping cough, tetanus, measles and rotavirus. [via Reuters]