Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has donated $750 million to UNICEF for The Vaccine Fund, which will be used for immunizing children in 72 of the poorest countries of the world.
“Supporting children’s immunization is undoubtedly the best investment we’ve ever made. In just five years, their efforts have saved hundreds of thousands of children’s lives, and its work in the coming years will save millions more,” said Bill Gates, co-founder of the Gates Foundation.
The government of Norway has promised $290 million in the next five years and the British government has said that it too will contribute as much as Gate did.
UNICEF partnered by Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) will use the fund for eradicating measles, offering maternal and neonatal tetanus vaccines and distributing polio vaccines in the needy nations. Julian Lob-Levyt, executive secretary of GAVI and incoming chief executive officer of The Vaccine Fund said, “Our goal is to provide every child with life-saving immunizations. GAVI’s experience shows that goal is achievable -- vaccine programs work in every country, even those facing natural disasters and armed conflict.”
In last five years GAVI has spent more than $1 billion obtained through donations to immunize children in developing countries. These efforts have resulted in 4 million children being vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis; 42 million more against hepatitis B; 5 million against Hib and 3 million more children against yellow fever. Besides this, the organization distributed 991 million single-use syringes to ensure safe vaccinations.
The organization aims to bring down childhood mortality by two-thirds before the end of 2015. According to the estimates released by WHO in the year 2002, 1.4 million children died from diseases that could have been prevented by immunization, and another 1.1 million died from diseases for which vaccines will be available very soon.
“Today, a child’s access to life-saving vaccines too often depends on where he or she lives in the world, and that’s unacceptable,” said Gates. “Vaccines taken for granted in rich countries still don’t get to millions of children in the developing world. This is a solvable problem -- it’s time for donors, both public and private, to dramatically step up their efforts to close the immunization gap (referring to $ 8-12 billion still required by GAVI via donations).”
