A recent declaration by representatives of about 80 countries, including Australia, supported an initiative to rid the world of polio within five years.
It involves ensuring that children everywhere have access to the polio vaccine.
But medical specialists and humanitarian workers say pharmaceutical companies still need to do more to make polio and other vaccines more affordable.
Hannah Sinclair reports.
Eradication of deadly diseases through immunisation was the subject of a recent global summit in Abu Dhabi.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates used the gathering to announce his foundation would contribute $1.8 billion to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
He pointed out to the delegates that vaccines generally work like magic in the fight against deadly diseases.
"The dream is to make vaccines available to every child. Vaccines are really a magical tool. They are very low cost. They prevent disease on a life long basis. They've been responsible for the majority of health improvement that's taken place in the last hundred years."
Young Australian of the Year, Akram Azimi represented Australia at the Abu Dhabi summit.
The 25-year-old Afghan refugee first encountered polio victims while walking through Peshawar in Pakistan as a boy.
Mr Azimi is calling on the Australian government to contribute more to the eradication of polio, beyond the $50-million it committed four years ago.
And while the merits of childhood vaccination continue to be debated in the West, Mr Azimi says parents in developing countries don't have that luxury.
"To be honest with you its one of those questions of luxury because we do live in a sanitised country where everybody else has immunity. This is not a question we can really ask in a place like Pakistan and Peshawar where there's still open sewage and the risk of polio is really, really strong."
Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan are the only countries where the polio virus remains endemic.
Vaccination against deadly diseases remains problematic in these countries due to a lack of access and political complications.
Despite this, Mr Gates says the effort to reach all children must continue.
"And so we need to do more. More to make them available, to invent them, to get their prices down. What we need to do is very clear because of vaccines."
The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, or GAVI makes vaccines available to developing countries by negotiating prices with drug companies.
It says obtaining low-price agreements requires donors and governments working together.
The humanitarian organisation, Medecines Sans Frontieres, or MSF, says it now costs nearly $US 40 dollars to fully vaccinate a child against polio and ten other diseases.
MSF spokeswoman Kate Elder says despite being a member of GAVI, MSF is unable to get the vaccines at the cheaper price.
"MSF has been having difficulty accessing that price. In fact we cannot access that price and we've been trying to do so for the past four years. And this is increasingly becoming a problem because MSF and the places where we work we really see the need for these tools. And we're reaching the communities and populations that are missed by the formal health system."
Kate Elder says in order to work effectively humanitarian groups must have access to cheaper vaccines.
"MSF works in conflict, in crisis contexts, we work with refugee populations, we work with the most vulnerable children and we have access to these groups that other actors of the government doesn't sometimes have. So in order to be able to use these vaccines we need to be able to purchase them at a low price."
Australian representative Akram Azimi says healthy competition between companies is lowering the cost of vaccines.
"The growing vibrancy of competition between producers, you know at this summit one thing that I did come across is that there's a real optimism with regards to vaccines. And a lot more companies are starting to enter into this space and producing new, and ground breaking methodologies and it is bringing down price."
Philanthropist Bill Gates told the summit vaccine programs have the potential to restore communities.
"The goal is to reach all children, no matter where they live, with the vaccines they need. It's hard to overstate how much human promise this effort would unlock, and the opportunity it would create for families, communities and nations."
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