Gavi Alliance plans expansion impact of vaccines by 2020

As five African countries prepare to celebrate World Immunization Week (24-30 April) with the impending introduction of new vaccines, the GAVI Alliance is finalising plans to build on its successes with a major drive to increase access to vaccines and the impact of immunisation programmes by 2020.

This week, Angola and the Republic of Congo plan to begin protecting their children against severe diarrhoea with the rotavirus vaccine while Tanzania expects to begin a demonstration project to protect girls from the leading cause of cervical cancer with the human papillomavirus vaccine. Next week, Madagascar plans to also introduce rotavirus vaccine and Togo expects to undertake a dual launch of rotavirus and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.

While these launches are taking place, the GAVI Alliance is preparing for a meeting to be held next month in Brussels, where the Alliance will set out the significantly increased impact that can be achieved by supporting immunisation programmes in the world’s poorest countries through to 2020.

“We are on the eve of an unprecedented expansion of vaccination programmes. Since 2000, GAVI Alliance partners have vaccinated an additional 440 million children, saving six million lives. In Brussels, we will present an historical opportunity to go even further and secure a healthy future for a generation of vaccinated children in developing countries, a generation that holds the key to their countries’ futures.

“Immunisation is widely recognised as one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions ever introduced, preventing between 2 and 3 million deaths every year. Yet each year more than 22 million children – many of them in the poorest and most remote communities – have little or no access to a full course of the most basic vaccines. One in five of all children who die before the age of five lose their lives to vaccine-preventable diseases,” Dagfinn Høybråten, Chair of the GAVI Alliance pointed out.

Central to the Alliance’s on-going drive to immunise more children has been an unprecedented acceleration in the number of new vaccines introduced by the 73 countries that receive GAVI support. Between 2011 and the end of 2013, 93 new vaccine introductions were initiated with GAVI support and a further 50 are projected for 2014.

In 2011, donors backed the Alliance with $ 7.4 billion of funding for programmes from 2011 to 2015. The Alliance set itself the target of immunising nearly a quarter of a billion children, during that period. Last October in Stockholm, the GAVI Mid-Term Review confirmed that the Alliance partners are on track to meet this goal.

The plan by Gavi Alliance to expand impact of vaccines by 2020 is coming as it has approved $ 21 million to help improve vaccine supply chains in Nigeria as part of a partnership aimed at scaling up routine immunisation.

The funds are expected to be used by National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) to procure vital equipment for storing vaccines and to improve data collection, both of which have been identified as key pillars in protecting children’s lives as enshrined in the Saving One Million Lives Initiative.

GAVI’s investment includes the procurement of vital refrigeration equipment at key points of the supply chain, at the Federal, state and local government area levels. The move comes as part of a broader partnership on health system strengthening including vaccine supply chain improvement.

This is expected to be complemented with support from other partners including the European Union, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the UK’s Department of International Development and the Canadian International Development Agency.

“Improving cold chain equipment will help bridge vital gaps that currently exist in Nigeria’s supply chains. This will not only help Nigeria reach its Saving One Million Lives targets by improving routine immunisation, but it will also play a crucial role in Nigeria’s polio eradication efforts and set the stage for forthcoming new vaccine introductions,” Seth Berkley, GAVI CEO.

With one of the largest number of vaccine preventable deaths in Africa, Nigeria is a priority for GAVI and one which requires a tailored approach. Since 2000 GAVI has committed more than $670 million in vaccine support for the country, and this latest effort to strengthen cold chains will play an important role in protecting that investment.

This includes the provision of vaccines against yellow fever, meningitis A, measles and the recently introduced five-in-one pentavalent vaccines – which combine diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccines with hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccines.