Press releases, 2009

Through its commitment to immunisation and other child health interventions, Vietnam has drastically reduced its child deaths, putting the country well on track to reach the Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG) before the 2015 deadline.
 

Fifteen health ministers from low-income countries today received awards from the GAVI Alliance for their outstanding performance in improving child health and immunisation.

GAVI Alliance's increasing support on the vaccine market has impacted the price of one of the major combination vaccines, the pentavalent, enabling GAVI partners to vaccinate millions of more children in the developing world.

Over 20 health ministers from developing countries have appealed to donors to maintain their commitment to immunisation programmes ahead of a meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, next week.
 

Marking the first international World Pneumonia Day on 2 November, the GAVI Alliance plans to immunise 130 million children in poor countries against pneumonia, the world’s leading child killer.
 

Nearly 2.3 million children continue to die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases, even while the overall mortality rate of children continues to drop.
 

Minister of Health Dr. Mariatou Jallow administers the first dose of the pneumococcal vaccine to Gambian children at a rural clinic outside Banjul.
 

More than 18 million children in India will be immunised with a pentavalent five-in-one vaccine thanks to funding worth US$ 165 million from GAVI.
 

Representatives from major health and humanitarian relief organizations are coming together to coordinate outreach efforts for the first-ever World Pneumonia Day on November 2, 2009.
 

Vaccine bonds offered to Japanese retail investors raise USD 130 million equivalent to help pay for health and immunisation programmes in some of the world’s poorest countries.
 

The GAVI Alliance, which has been hosted by UNICEF since it was launched in 2000, has become an independent international institution - the first organisation to receive such recognition under the new Swiss Host State Act.

The GAVI Alliance partners, the World Bank, WHO and UNICEF, and five national governments and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation formally kick-off the first-ever Advance Market Commitment (AMC) designed to accelerate access to vaccines against pneumococcal disease.
 

The World Health Organization has recommended that rotavirus vaccination be included in all national immunization programmes in order to provide protection against a virus that is responsible for more than 500,000 diarrhoeal deaths and two million hospitalisations annually among children.
 

The Netherlands pledges Euros 80 million over eight years to an innovative financing initiative that converts long-term government pledges into immediate funds for children’s vaccination programmes.
 

The United States will donate $75 million to the GAVI Alliance’s immunisation initiative to protect children in the world’s poorest countries with new and under-used vaccines – its largest annual contribution to date.

GAVI has appointed Australian development expert Helen Evans as its first Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Evans will join GAVI in June after serving for the past four years as Deputy Executive Director at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
 

Twenty seven countries contribute to vaccine costs through the GAVI Alliance; up from just six in 2007.
 

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) board chairman Alan Gillespie tells participants at a meeting on innovative financing in Geneva that there is a strong demand among individual and institutional investors for ethical investments.
 

29 million Euro donation will help accelerate vaccination efforts in 72 of the world’s poorest countries.
 

Scientists, economists, health experts and NGOs mark the European Day of Immunology with urgent appeal to the G8.
 

International leaders in global health set to join Rwandan government officials at a press conference in Kigali to announce the first national immunisation programme against pneumococcal disease in a developing country.
 

In an effort to save lives and contain the spread of meningitis, the GAVI Alliance has fast tracked a US$ 55 million contribution to establish a stockpile of meningococcal vaccines and pay for reactive campaigns in the highly endemic African “meningitis belt” countries.

Child health groups unite with Save the Children Artist Ambassadors Gwyneth Paltrow and Hugh Laurie to establish an annual World Pneumonia Day on November 2, 2009. The day will mobilise efforts to fight a neglected disease that kills more than two million children under the age of five each year worldwide.
 

The GAVI Alliance and the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) unite more than 80 leading experts in healthcare from governments, business, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for a high-level conference in London.
 

The GAVI Alliance has started implementing a proactive gender policy into its work to ensure equal access to immunisation for boys and girls. GAVI’s Gender Policy commits the Alliance to use a gender perspective in the design, planning, and delivery of vaccinations and other health services.
 

Investors are being offered an opportunity to save money and help save lives with a new Vaccine Investment ISA which aims to raise £50 million to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries.
 

Broadcast journalist Park Jung-sook has been appointed to represent the GAVI Alliance as an advocate in the Republic of Korea. The Geneva-based GAVI Alliance is seeking to strengthen its ties with the Republic of Korea which is playing an increasingly prominent role in global health and development issues.
 

Girls in developing countries deserve the same access to a life-saving vaccine against cervical cancer as girls in richer nations, said the GAVI Alliance on World Cancer Day.
 

“Vaccine bonds" which are expected to go on sale in Japan next month will offer Japanese investors a fixed rate of return plus an opportunity to see their money used to help immunise children in the world’s poorest countries.