Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance
- The largest international vaccine mechanism
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is the largest international cooperation mechanism that contributed to improving overall health of humanity by providing vaccination to children in low-income countries.
Gavi coordinated the COVAX Facility immediately after the coronavirus outbreak in the year 2020 to provide fair and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines in every nation across the globe, including developing countries where it is difficult to proactively secure vaccines. The COVAX initiative to reduce vaccine disparity between high-and low-income countries aims to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to vaccines. It has greatly contributed to saving lives in low-income countries by delivering over 1 billion doses of vaccine to 144 countries as of January 2022.
Contributed to global vaccine equity by delivering vaccines to lower and middle-income countries
In response to vaccine inequity and stockpiling of vaccines in rich countries especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance pursued international solidarity and multilateral cooperation for universal and equitable access to vaccines. Gavi coordinated the COVAX initiative immediately after the coronavirus outbreak in the year 2020, a global collaboration to support manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines and negotiate their pricing for fair and equitable access. COVAX is a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines directed by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the World Health Organization (WHO). As of January 2022, the count of vaccines distributed in 144 nations worldwide has reached 1 billion. These efforts are serving as a global solution to the pandemic, and 90% of the vaccines provided to low and middle-income countries have been fully funded.
Contributed to vaccinating 800 million children worldwide, reducing child mortality rate by 50%
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is the largest international cooperation mechanism that contributed to improving the overall health of humanity by providing vaccination to children in developing countries. It is an international cooperation mechanism that brings together public and private agents including governments, associations, NGOs, development agencies, foundations, companies, and other agencies, via which 820 million children in developing countries have been vaccinated, and it has prevented over 14 million deaths since its founding in the year 2000. In particular, the number of children immunized with the DPT3(diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) vaccine in 73 developing countries increased from 59% in 2000 to 81% in 2020. And the number of vaccines available to the inhabitants of the poorest countries has increased from 5 to 17, including the pentavalent vaccine (a five-in-one vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and Hib(Haemophilus influenzae type b)) and other vaccines against rotavirus, pneumococcus, cholera, typhus, measles, rubella, yellow fever, polio vaccine, etc
Directly contributed to the achievement of 14 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals
Gavi directly contributed to the achievement of 14 of the 17 UN Sustainable development goals, aiming to reach the figure of 300 million immunized children, 1.1 billion immunized minors and prevent 22 million future deaths by 2025.
It is through this work improving health equitably across the world that we can help foster, stable, prosperous, and peaceful societies.
Good health is the deadlock on which prosperity can be built. A child free from diseases are more likely to go to school.
Their parents are less likely to take time off work to care for them through illness.
Their finances are less likely to be burdened by hospital or clinic fees.
A healthier society is a wealthier society and from this prosperity comes stability and peace.
Time and time again. History shows us that broken economies lead to nationalism to crisis and to conflict.
Of course, right now we're seeing this interplay between health economics and stability play out in real-time around the world.
Acceptance Speech
Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, Sunhak Peace Prize Foundation members, my colleague and fellow laureate Sarah Gilbert, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honor and privilege to receive this prize on behalf of the Gavi Alliance. I am very, very sorry to not be able to join you in person, but my duties required me to stay here in Geneva.
Making the world better for future generations is a shared goal and I’d like to commend Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, for your tireless work turning this ambition into a reality. Your creation of this prestigious award has done so much to shine a light on those working to improve the world we live in. I thank you for your commitment to bettering humanity. Of course, for us at the Vaccine Alliance, making the world better means improving the health of hundreds of millions of the world’s children. It means protecting them, and more recently, their parents against deadly diseases through vaccination. It means helping to ensure everybody, no matter where they’re born, has an equal chance at a healthy future.
It is through this work improving health equitably across the world that we can help foster stable, prosperous, and peaceful societies. Good health is the bedrock on which prosperity can be built. A child free from diseases is more likely to go to school. Their parents are less likely to take time off work to care for them through illness. Their finances are less likely to be burdened by hospital or clinic fees. A healthier society is a wealthier society and from this prosperity comes stability and peace. Time and time again, history shows us that broken economies lead to nationalism, to crisis and to conflict. Of course, right now we’re seeing this interplay between health economics and stability play out in real-time around the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic has cost the global economy trillions of dollars on top of millions of lives lost and the global political landscape has never looked more fragile. We have seen countries retreat into vaccine nationalism, instituting export bans, and buying up many more COVID-19 vaccine doses than they need for their populations in their time of short supply.
We are at a crossroads. One path, the path of nationalism and insularity, could lead us to increased insecurity and the continued spread and evolution of COVID-19. The other path available to us is that of shared partnership. We can defeat this global pandemic and end this economic toll but only by working together. The spirit of partnership and multilateralism embodied by the Sunhak Peace Prize Foundation and the distinguished laureates up until now has also been embodied by Gavi since its creation in 2000. We are an alliance, a partnership encompassing international organizations like the WHO and UNICEF, civil society, vaccine manufacturers, donor governments, and the governments of the countries we exist to serve.
Each plays an instrumental role in the work we do. This partnership has achieved incredible results. Our alliance now helps immunize nearly half the world’s children against diseases from measles to diphtheria, pneumonia to polio. Over the past two decades, we’ve immunized more than 900 million additional children reducing vaccine-preventable diseases by 70%, contributing to more than a 50% reduction in child mortality in the lower-income countries we serve.
However, COVID-19 has put this progress at risk. 2020 saw vaccine rates dropped in lower-income countries for the first time in decades due to fear and lockdowns as well as the fact that health systems were forced to turn their focus and attention to the pandemic. Our alliance is working hard with countries to get routine immunization back on track.
But of course, the best way to reduce the impact of the pandemic is to bring it to an end. To help do this, we have brought the decades of experience to bear on the creation of a multilateral solution to this pandemic alongside WHO, CEPI and UNICEF. We’ve created a true world first in COVAX. For the first time, we have a platform through which the world can come together to ensure fair, equitable access to vaccines for every country and every population during a pandemic. This is not just the morally just thing to do. It is also in everybody’s self-interest as the best route out of the pandemic. The longer we leave large portions of the global population unvaccinated, the more chance this disease has to mutate and evolve. Global equitable vaccination remains our best hope in preventing this.
As a multilateral solution to a global crisis, COVAX works. In the 12 months since our first doses were administered, we’ve delivered over a billion doses of WHO-approved COVID-19 vaccines around the world. 90% of these doses went to lower-income countries at no cost to them. Thanks to an incredible effort from our COVAX partners, governments and army of vaccinators and health workers around the world, COVAX vaccines are now reaching people in every corner of the world, from the Sahara to the peaks of the Himalayas.
Of course, the pandemic is far from over. 2022 will be another challenging year, but we’ve proved that our multilateral solutions to this pandemic can work. With further support, we can fulfill COVAX’s mission to end vaccine inequality and end the pain and suffering that COVID has brought to so many of us.
I’d like to also take this opportunity to thank the Republic of Korea, who has been supporting Gavi’s core mission since 2010 and last year made a historic $200 million contribution to COVAX, helping us procure vaccines for countries most in need. We are deeply grateful for this support. I accept this prize as just one representative of an alliance that encompasses not just the Gavi secretary in Geneva, but also hundreds of thousands of partners, immunization managers, and health workers across the world, working day and night to ensure vaccines reach the vulnerable and helping to forge a better, healthier, more prosperous future for all of us. On behalf of all of us at the Vaccine Alliance, I thank you.
.png)
Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance
Main Activities
2001-Present : mmunized over 500 million children in 73 countries with pentavalent vaccine (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type b)
2001-Present : Delivered over 55 million doses of yellow fever vaccine to 14 countries, preventing over 1 million deaths
2007-Present : Vaccinated 2nd dose of measles to over 95 million children
2008-Present : Vaccinated 100 million children against rotavirus in 48 countries
2009-Present : Vaccinated over 183 million children with PCV (Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine)
2010-Present : Vaccinated over 9 million children against Meningitis A, the first vaccine specifically developed for Africa
2013-Present : Reached over 275 million children through measles-rubella prevention campaigns
2018-Present : Introduced the first vaccine against Ebola virus
2020-Present : Coordinated the COVAX Facility in response to Covid-19 pandemic
Awards
2019 Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award
2020 Princess Asturias Award for International Cooperation