Gavi To Raise $7.4 Billion Dollars For Vaccination Programs

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced it is launching a fundraising drive of at least US $ 7.4 billion dollars to fund plans to immunize an additional 300 million children and save up to 8 million lives.

The 2021-25 Investment Opportunity was launched on August 30, 2019, at a special event at the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama co-hosted by the Japanese government, 

This Investment Opportunity sets out how Gavi will continue to provide the most comprehensive and cost-effective preventive health package in history.

During Gavi’s initial phase which began in 2000, it supported 6 basic vaccines, helping to immunize over 760 million people against deadly diseases, saving more than 13 million lives.

But, by 2025 this will increase to 18 vaccines, including new support for inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), rabies and multivalent meningococcal vaccines, as well as funding for an Ebola vaccine stockpile.

In its next phase, the Vaccine Alliance plans to protect children against childhood diseases, adolescents against cervical cancer through the scaling up of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine support, and against deadly outbreaks of Ebola, cholera, yellow fever, and meningitis through supporting vaccine stockpiles.

Due in part to the success of Gavi’s work creating healthier vaccine markets and empowering countries to take on more of their own vaccine financing, the Alliance will be able to achieve these ambitious targets with less funding than that needed for the 2016-2020 period, for which Gavi secured US $ 7.5 billion. 

The Vaccine Alliance’s work with vaccine markets has helped to halve the total cost of fully immunizing a child with pentavalent, pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines since 2010. 

By 2020 the Vaccine Alliance will have helped 18 countries successfully transition out of Gavi support, so they are fully funding their own vaccine programs.

“Over the past two decades the Vaccine Alliance has helped to protect a generation against some of the world’s deadliest diseases,” said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in this press release.

“However, 1.5 million people are still dying every year from vaccine-preventable diseases, while climate change, conflict, and urbanization are combining to make it easier for outbreaks to spread.” 

“This calls for an urgent response to ensure people continue to be protected against disease, to prevent deadly outbreaks and to help the next generation prosper.”

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chair of the Gavi Board and former Nigeria Finance Minister said, “Each dollar invested in immunization gives a return of up to US$ 54 in wider societal benefits.” 

“Children who are vaccinated are more likely to go to school. Their relatives aren’t forced to give up work to look after their sick children or fall into poverty thanks to often-debilitating healthcare costs.”

That’s why a fully-funded Gavi replenishment is expected to bring as much as US $ 100 billion in economic benefits by 2025, helping to build a healthier, more prosperous world for all of us.”

Gavi’s total predicted expenditure for the 2021-25 period is expected to reach US $ 9.4 billion, however, Gavi expects to have resources of US $ 2 billion dollars already available for the next strategic period. 

These resources consist mainly of proceeds from existing donor pledges to the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), an innovative finance mechanism that uses long-term pledges from donor governments to sell ‘vaccine bonds’ in the capital markets, making large volumes of funds immediately available for Gavi programs. 

Further funding is available from some preliminary pledge extensions, investment income and a drawdown from Gavi’s cash and investment reserve.

Gavi’s unique public-private partnership model means it needs predictable financing to allow manufacturers and implementing countries to forecast demand over a five-year period. This helps to drive value for money and maximize the impact of every dollar invested in the Vaccine Alliance.