The European Commission has today announced it will be pledging €300 million to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, from 2021 through 2025. This comes in a bid to help immunise at least 300 million children around the world and finance stockpiles and a response to help shield against further outbreaks of infectious diseases.
Photo: Jorisvo / Shutterstock
The goal is to help strengthen health systems and immunisation capacities in developing and vulnerable nations, they announced at the Global Vaccine Summit, which took place on Thursday.
This initiative falls under the umbrella of a greater scheme launched by the EC to provide a global response to the pandemic by funding vaccines to inoculate a large number of countries.
This response was initialised at an event held on May 4.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said: “Vaccines can only save lives if everyone who needs them can access them, especially in the most vulnerable communities and regions of the world. This is why Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance's work is so important.
“It gives developing countries the means to build stronger health systems and immunisation programmes, to make the world a safer place. I am glad that the European Commission can support Gavi in such a crucial endeavour. This will help us overcome this pandemic and avoid another.”
Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen said: “Building up immunisation systems is a fundamental part of the work the EU does with partner countries and Gavi to strengthen health systems, which will be more important than ever on our road to recovery from COVID-19.
“Improving children's access to basic health care, notably effective and safe vaccines was key to almost halving global child mortality between 2000 and 2017. Ensuring more vulnerable children have continued access to vaccines will be key for our collective success over the next five years.”
The €300 million pledged to Gavi will be allocated to several areas, including:
- Vaccinating 300 million and saving up to 8 million lives.
- Ensuring the successful transition of some countries into self-financing.
- Leveraging US$3.6 billion in national co-financing and self-funded vaccine programmes.
- Delivering over 3.2 billion doses of vaccines to 55 countries.
- Facilitating 1.4 billion contracts between families and health services through vaccination.
- Preventing the re-emerging of other curable diseases such as polio through routine programmes with various outlets such as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
The pledge was made under the assumption that the EU’s new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), and in particular, the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) are adopted broadly along the lines proposed by the EC.
This comes as the NCICI’s funding was increased to €86 on June 2 following increased demands to tackle the Covid outbreak.
The total funds raised by the Coronavirus Global Response thus far sits on around €9.8 billion. A full breakdown of donations is available here.
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