Press releases, 2010

A new vaccine which prevents the most deadly forms of pneumonia - the world's number one killer of children - was introduced today in the routine immunisation programme of a developing country, paving the way to introductions in more than 40 developing countries.

More than 240 million additional children will be immunised in the next five years saving four million lives, but only if the GAVI Alliance receives the funds required to accelerate the introduction of new and under-used vaccines in the developing world.

Former Norwegian Minister of Health and current member of parliament Dagfinn Høybråten was unanimously elected by the GAVI Alliance Board as its new Chair, GAVI announced on the first day of its board meeting taking place in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

A life-saving vaccine against five deadly diseases will now be less expensive for the world's poorest children, the GAVI Alliance announced today.

The GAVI Alliance has issued a new call for applications from developing countries keen to protect more of their children from disease with new vaccines.

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation Company (IFFIm) today priced its inaugural Australian dollar benchmark. The AUD 400 million, five‐year bonds provide investors with a unique opportunity to help protect millions of children in the world's poorest countries against preventable diseases.

HRH Princess Cristina, Director of the International Area of the "la Caixa" Foundation, and Mary Robinson, Chair of the GAVI Alliance Board, ex-President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, renewed this morning at Caixa Forum Madrid the commitment of "la Caixa" to the eradication of child mortality with the donation to GAVI of 3 million euros.

The City of Geneva marked World Pneumonia Day Friday by turning its iconic 140-metre high fountain, the "Jet d'Eau", blue, the official color of the Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia.

Superheroes, stars, politicians, health workers, development experts, children and thousands of concerned citizens around the world will on Friday 12 November mark World Pneumonia Day, highlighting the world's leading killer of children under five years old.

Luxembourg signed an agreement with the GAVI Alliance on Wednesday to give € 4.1 million (US $ 5.7 million). This multi-year pledge will help protect millions of children against vaccine-preventable diseases.

With a new pledge of A$ 60 million (US$ 58 million) over three years, the Government of Australia doubled its previous commitment to the GAVI Alliance on Wednesday and set the pace for other donors at a meeting in New York.

The Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, today announced a major Canadian government contribution to the GAVI Alliance (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization).

Immunisation and the work of the GAVI Alliance is vital to the UN's global strategy to improve the health of hundreds of millions of women and children by expanding access to basic healthcare, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the launch of the GAVI Alliance's first replenishment process in New York.

The GAVI Alliance has welcomed a US$ 1 million contribution from the Republic of Korea, the first Asian donor to support the Geneva-based global health partnership whose work on immunisation has saved 5.4 million lives in the past 10 years.

Immunising children against preventable diseases is critical to achieving United Nations-led goals to reduce child deaths, global health and development chiefs said in New York today.

New vaccines against the pneumococcal bacteria and rotavirus could save more than one million children's lives each year, but a US$ 4 billion gap in funding threatens these and other immunisation programmes, a report published jointly today by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the GAVI Alliance, said.

To mark a major United Nations summit on child health and poverty reduction, the GAVI Alliance is staging an exhibition beside the lake in Geneva about the power of immunisation to save and protect children's lives.

The Government of Nepal received a significant boost to its efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality and illness after its leading aid donors signed a new unprecedented joint financing arrangement today.

Julian Lob-Levyt will step down as CEO of the GAVI Alliance in October to take up a major role in the private sector after leading the public-private global health partnership through nearly six years of growth and innovation.

Findings reinforce research from other low-income, high-burden settings — including Africa — that show rotavirus vaccination can have a major public health impact.

On the occasion of the African Union Summit, global health organisations are calling for increased commitments to improve the health of women and children in Africa in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

A Johns Hopkins University scientist, whose team of researchers recently identified pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria as the primary causes of death of 6 million of the world's poorest children, today called on leaders in donor and developing nations to take action to address the terrible death toll.

Millions of children in the world's poorest countries must be protected against diarrhoea and pneumonia with new life-saving vaccines in spite of the global economic crisis, donors to the GAVI Alliance have vowed.

Marking the Day of the African Child, the GAVI Alliance is launching its 10th anniversary Progress Report that lays out the achievements of developing countries in saving children's lives through immunisation.

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), in collaboration with GAVI Alliance, the World Bank and HSBC Securities (Japan) Limited, announced today that it will begin offering vaccine investment bonds, also known as "vaccine bonds", to Japanese retail investors starting 7 June 2010.

The GAVI Alliance welcomes the commitment made by nations at the World Health Assembly in Geneva today to combat the world's biggest killer of children under five.

Bonds which raise money to ensure that children in the world's poorest countries can be protected against deadly diseases have proved remarkably popular with Japanese retail investors, particularly women who account for around half the buyers in recent transactions.

The GAVI Alliance and its partners welcome Guyana's introduction this week of vaccinations against rotavirus, the primary cause of the most common and lethal cause of diarrhoea in young children.

Millions of infants and young children in the world's poorest countries will receive potentially life-saving vaccines that help protect against pneumococcal disease, including pneumonia -- the world's biggest childhood killer, thanks to new agreements made with two major pharmaceutical firms, the GAVI Alliance announced today.

Press conference to announce major new Gates Foundation commitment to vaccine development and delivery.