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Jennifer Rigby
LONDON (Reuters) – The Global Vaccine Organization (GAVI) expects to raise about $11.9 billion from governments and foundations over the next five years to fund immunization efforts in the world’s poorest countries, according to a board document seen by Reuters.
The amount will be finalized at a meeting in Paris on Thursday, when donors will pledge their contributions to the organisation’s 2026-2030 plan.
A separately funded $1 billion initiative to boost vaccine production in Africa, the Africa Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, also launches on Thursday.
Gavi helps low-income countries purchase vaccines to protect against deadly diseases. Since 2020, almost one billion children have been vaccinated as a result of Gavi’s work.
GAVI Chief Executive Sania Nishtar said the group aims to move faster and deliver more vaccines, including expanding the rollout of malaria vaccines that began in Cameroon this year and catching up on routine programmes for diseases such as measles that have been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Global Vaccine Alliance wants to “reach as many children as possible with vaccines against as many diseases as possible in the shortest possible time,” Nishtar told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday ahead of the meeting.
Nishtar said the amounts outlined in the council’s document were not yet final, adding that this is an extremely challenging time for global health, with aid budgets strained around the world due to demands from conflict to climate change.
“Gavi has never had to make a trade-off before,” she says. “On the one hand, we have a broad portfolio of vaccines available, and on the other hand, we face an environment where donors are resource-constrained.”
But she said she was cautiously optimistic the group would raise the amount needed.
Gavi plans to further expand its work in the coming years, for example by preparing a stockpile of pox vaccines and likely adding a dengue vaccine to its program as climate change puts more countries at risk of disease spread, and it also plans to set up a “day zero” $500 million pandemic response fund to rapidly respond to any major outbreaks.
(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby and Cynthia Osterman Editing)
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