Posted on December 3, 2010

GAVI Alliance Launches $6.8 Billion Global Vaccines Campaign

The GAVI Alliance, which works to accelerate access to and the availability of vaccines, has announced the launch of a five-year, $6.8 billion campaign to provide 240 million children in the developing world with pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines.

While a total of $3.1 billion has been raised from donors who have made commitments ahead of a June 2011 pledging conference — including $55 million from Norway and Sweden — the Geneva-based alliance hopes to raise an additional $3.7 billion. The United Kingdom has offered to co-host the conference, while France and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have agreed to work with the UK to garner support for the event.

With the funds raised by the campaign, GAVI hopes to prevent an additional 3.9 million deaths over five years, a critical contribution to the Millennium Development Goals, especially MDG 4, which aims by 2015 to reduce by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate. The funds also will be used to accelerate the introduction of routine meningitis vaccination; support campaigns against yellow fever and meningitis; and launch new and underused vaccines against meningitis A, Japanese encephalitis, rubella, typhoid, and HPV.

"As the proud father of four and grandfather of two, I'm determined that children in the world's poorest countries will benefit from the same basic vaccines as my own family," said GAVI's chairman-elect Dagfinn Høybråten, a Norwegian Member of Parliament and former health minister. "Those children have a right to health and I will not rest until we have reached them with the power of immunization."