WHO: Fully-Funded Gavi Crucial for Child Survival

Vaccination accounts for 40% of the worldwide improvement in infant survival over these 50 years, and more children now live to see their first birthday and beyond than at any other time in human history. Much of this success is a result of the investments entrusted to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, founded in 2000.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which includes WHO, UNICEF and the Gates Foundation as core founding members, was created to widen the benefits of EPI by helping the poorest countries in the world benefit from new, life-saving vaccines, and increase the coverage of EPI vaccines. These two goals, one to expand the scope of protection and one to expand the scale of protection, have resulted in a greater breadth of protection against an increasing number of vaccine-preventable diseases. This intensified effort, including in the most vulnerable parts of the world, has helped to save more lives and further vaccine equity - ensuring children who never receive a single vaccine are reached.

Since 2000, Gavi has protected an entire generation – over 1 billion children – against infectious diseases, helping to cut by half child mortality in 78 lower-income countries. From 2000-2023, Gavi supported 637 vaccine introductions and vaccination campaigns to protect children around the world against 16 life-threatening infectious diseases. Not only are vaccines delivering protection and high impact, immunization is a 'best buy' in health with a return on investment of $54 for every dollar invested.

Decades of progress have made many vaccine-preventable diseases a rarity in the lives of families. Cuts in the investments to Gavi pose a massive threat to unravel this progress. Infectious diseases do not stop at borders. Where there are pockets of un- and under-immunized children and adults, measles and other diseases can easily spread, as we're seeing in the U.S. and around the world. This puts all lives at risk, costs individuals and governments substantial resources to respond to outbreaks and stretches already scarce health system resources. This says nothing about the long-term harms and even deaths that occur to what should have been healthy lives.

Gavi has been the front line to help keep deadly vaccine-preventable diseases at bay, working hand in hand with WHO, UNICEF and other public and private sector partners, most notably, community health workers and families eager to protect their loved ones. Through routine immunization, Gavi has been critical to maintaining vaccine stockpiles for outbreak-prone diseases such as Ebola, yellow fever and meningitis.

In the next 5 years, Gavi will protect at least 500 million children from preventable disease and in so doing save an additional 8-9 million lives. Without continued support by the U.S. and other donors, the world is at risk of a dangerous backsliding in immunization coverage – meaning more zero-dose children, more disease outbreaks, more diseases crossing borders, more threats to health and more children who never reach even their 5th birthday.

Every child has the right to health. Our best defense against infectious diseases is continued investment in life-saving immunizations for all. We cannot turn our backs on protecting all children and all communities from these diseases. Nobody should be mistaken that reversing the gains of the past 25 years of immunization is anything other than a grave threat to us all. It is critical to continue investment in Gavi so that life-saving immunizations can continue to reach all children.