GAVI welcomes a new global commitment to vaccines

A new partnership was announced today, injecting additional funding into the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation’s (GAVI) efforts to help save millions of children.  His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation entered [...]

Progress in global public health threatened by funding shortfalls

Last year was full of “big events” for public health, including the launch of a new meningitis vaccine and an aggressive new strategy for polio eradication, the head of the United Nations health agency said today, while stressing the need to ensure that progress is maintained in the year ahead.  (UN Daily News) Margaret Chan, [...]

GAVI offers new opportunity to apply for life-saving vaccines

The GAVI Alliance has issued a new call for applications from developing countries keen to protect more of their children from disease with new vaccines. Studies have shown that immunisation not only saves lives, but also boosts economies, acting as a key driver of development.3  Increasing immunisation rates is vital to meet the health Millennium [...]

UN Secretary-General urges increased funding for life-saving immunizations

Stressing the vital role immunizations play in improving the health of millions worldwide, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for increasing funding for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) – an innovative United Nations-backed initiative that has reached some 257 million children with new and under-used vaccines since it’s creation in 2000. Increased [...]

Immunization and the MDGs – report from the Red Cross/Red Crescent and GAVI Alliance

A new joint report (Immunization:  unfinished business) from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Socieities (IFRC) and the GAVI Alliance highlights the health impacts of vaccines and the value of partnerships in achieving complex goals such as Millennium Development Goal 4 — the reduction of childhood mortality. The report highlights that: Immunization [...]

The “D” Word – Economist blog

From the Economist’s Babbage blog… LIFESAVER FOR those in rich countries, diarrhoea is a nuisance. For those in the poor, though, it is a killer. About 1.3m children a year die from the dehydration it causes, and even those who survive may have their development stunted by the loss of nutrients it entails. One of [...]

GAVI improves access to vaccines – could save close to 1 million lives by 2015

Drugmakers Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline signed a landmark 10-year deal on Tuesday to supply 60 million doses a year of cut-price pneumococcal vaccines to developing nations (Reuters).   The deal, brokered by the Geneva-based Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), is the first under a new scheme called an Advance Market Commitment (AMC) which guarantees a [...]

$4.3 billion needed to fund vaccines for world’s poor

$4.3 billion is needed if the GAVI Alliance is to meet its goal of supplying life-saving immunizations to millions of children in poor countries by 2015.  In 2000, world leaders from 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. GAVI, which is supported by the World [...]

$10 billion commitment to vaccine research and delivery – Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced today that they will commit $10 billion over the next 10 years to help research, develop and deliver vaccines for the world’s poorest countries (read more).  The Foundation estimates that increased vaccination could save more than 8 million children by 2020. “We must make this the decade of [...]

PAHO’s vaccine system hampers African efforts

Efforts to make newer and more costly vaccines widely available to the poorest in Africa are being hampered by a long-standing system that makes vaccines affordable to middle-income Latin American countries, reports the Financial Times. The Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) revolving fund, which began in 1979, negotiates substantial discounts with manufacturers on prices in [...]