GAVI Alliance

The GAVI Alliance (GAVI) (formerly The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) is a global health partnership between the private and public sectors, committed to the mission of saving children's lives and protecting people's health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.

The Alliance[]

The GAVI Alliance Board, as constituted in October 2008, consists of representatives from:

World Health Organization, WHO
United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF
The World Bank Group
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Governments of donor countries
Governments of developing countries
Vaccine industry of developing countries and industrialised countries
Research and technical health institutes
Civil society organisations
Independent individuals

Launched in 2000 at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the GAVI Alliance includes among its partners developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, NGOs, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. WHO estimates that more than 3.4 million early deaths will have been prevented as a result of support by GAVI up to the end of 2008 but this is impossible to confirm.

GAVI's efforts are critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goal on child health, which calls for reducing childhood mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Of the more than 10 million children who die before reaching their fifth birthday every year, 2.5 million die from diseases that could be more easily prevented with improvements to living conditions and diet.

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) was created in 2006 to raise capital for GAVI by frontloading government donations through the sale of bonds on the open market. So far, IFFIm has raised US$ 1.6 billion.

Priorities[]

Since 2000, the GAVI Alliance has vaccinated more than 200 million children and prevented over 3 million deaths. Yet, every year more than 2 million children under 5 still die from diseases vaccines could prevent. More than half of these 2 million children die from just two diseases.

• Pneumococcal disease causes pneumonia, blood poisoning, and a form of meningitis. Nine out of 10 child deaths from pneumococcal diseases occur in developing countries.

• Rotavirus is a severe form of diarrhea. For a child living in the U.S., the risk of death due to rotavirus is 1 in 200,000 – in Bangladesh that risk is 1,000 times higher.

GAVI is prioritizing the introduction of these two vaccines and has identified four more vaccines to reduce death and disease from typhoid, rubella, Japanese encephalitis, and cervical cancer.

Accelerated Development and Introduction Plans (ADIPs)[]

Historically, the time between introduction of a vaccinein the developed world and the developing world has been up to 15 to 20 years. For example, only 10% of infants in the world’s poorest countries had access to Hib and hepatitis B vaccines 15 to 18 years after certification. The ADIPs program aims to shorten the time lag between vaccines being proven safe and effective for use and their introduction in developing countries. GAVI has funded two ADIPs: pneumoADIP and the Rotavirus Vaccine Program. PneumoADIP, based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, aims to accelerate the evaluation of and access to new, lifesaving pneumococcal vaccines for the world's children. The Rotavirus Vaccine Program, a partnership between PATH, the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aims to make rotavirusvaccines accessible to children worldwide. For the most part, the mandate of the ADIPs is concluding. The work of supporting countries to make evidence-based decisions on the introduction of pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines will be carried on by the Accelerated Vaccine Introduction (AVI) initiative. The AVI is a partnership between GAVI, WHO, UNICEF and a consortium which includes PATH, the US Centers for Disease Control, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child[]

GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child is the US based non-profit organization engaging the private sector to support the provision of life-saving vaccines to the world’s poorest children by the GAVI Alliance and its immunization partners.

To connect visionary private philanthropists, corporations, foundations and communities with this global vaccination effort, the Immunize Every Child campaign was launched in New York City in September 2007. The Every Child Council was established in September 2007 to pay tribute to a diverse and dynamic group of influential individuals from public and private life including Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Her Royal Highness La Infanta Cristina of Spain, Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and President, Realizing Rights, Jon Corzine, Governor of the State of New Jersey, Mel Karmazin, CEO, SIRIUS Satellite Radio, George W. Wellde, Jr., Vice Chairman of Securities Division (Retired), Goldman Sachs & Co., Paul O’Connell, President, FDO Partners and Eileen O’Connell, physician, and Isidro Fainé, Chief Executive Officer, La Caixa Foundation.

The Immunize Every Child campaign is engaging major corporate partners in GAVI’s mission. In April 2008 GAVI partnered with La Caixa, Spain's leading savings bank and Europe's second largest foundation, in a multi-faceted engagement and giving program. This unique and noteworthy corporate social responsibility initiative includes an annual grant from the La Caixa Foundation, engagement of La Caixa's 26,000 employees, 400,000 depositors and 11 million account holders.

GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child is also reaching out to the broader community of individuals who want to make a difference. GiveVaccines is an internet site where people play a vocabulary game and where each correct answer funds 0.01 ml of vaccine for the GAVI Alliance. Immunize Every Child is also one of the founding members of World Pneumonia Day held on November 2nd 2009. This offered individuals a way to engage in the fight against pneumonia as the number one killer of children. 2 million children under the age of 5 die every year from pneumonia and that number could be dramatically reduced with the widescale introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate and Hib vaccines. Raising awareness about the potential of these vaccines to reduce pneumonia deaths as well as the potential of the new rotavirus vaccine to prevent diarrheal deaths (the second biggest killer of children) are strategic priorities for the GAVI Immunize Every Child campaign.

72 countries currently supported by GAVI[]

Afghanistan
Angola
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bangladesh
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Congo
Congo, Dem Republic of
Côte d'Ivoire
Cuba
Djibouti
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia
Georgia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Kiribati
Korea, DPR
Kyrgyz Republic
Lao PDR
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Moldova
Mongolia
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nepal
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Rwanda
São Tomé e Príncipe
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Solomon Islands
Somalia
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Timor Leste
Togo
Uganda
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Viet Nam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

External links[]

GAVI - The GAVI Alliance
GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child
IFFIm - International Finance Facility For Immunisation
Article on the bond issuance
New changes to the childhood Immunization vaccination schedule in UK
PATH's Rotavirus Vaccine Program
PneumoADIP at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
World Pneumonia Day
La Caixa