GAVI: Learning from 2020, renewing hope for 2021

For this reason, an essential part of Gavi’s work this year has been to provide vital support to countries to keep their routine immunisation services running. Despite the chaos and challenges brought on by COVID-19, we have also made significant progress in a number of areas in the fight against other vaccine-preventable diseases. In August, after four years without a case, the African Region was certified free of wild poliovirus. In November, the eleventh outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was declared over; more than 40,000 people were vaccinated, with support from Gavi, over the course of the outbreak.

As the year progressed, there were promising signs of some restoring of previous immunisation coverage levels – thanks to unprecedented collaboration between Vaccine Alliance partners like WHO and UNICEF, governments, civil society and health workers. But there remains an urgent need to catch up on children missed before and during the pandemic – including the 10.6 million “zero-dose” children in Gavi-supported countries who, even before the pandemic took hold, had not yet been reached with even a single dose of basic vaccines.

All this critical work doesn’t happen without funding, and it just so happened that COVID-19 struck during a replenishment year for Gavi. So amid all the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic, in June the UK Government hosted Gavi’s third donor pledging conference, the Global Vaccine Summit 2020. After the pandemic changed the original plan of hosting this in London, within just a few short weeks it was transformed into a unique virtual event that was attended by 42 heads of state, including all 7 of the G7, and viewed online by more than 180,000 people. Donors pledged more than US$ 8.8 billion to achieve Gavi’s ambitious goals of immunising a further 300 million children during our next strategic period (2021–2025), to prevent up to 8 million future deaths. And private sector partners pledged more than US$ 70 million in contributions to strengthen Gavi programmes.

Along the way, the great work that we are doing did not go without recognition, as the Vaccine Alliance received the prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2020, the highest score from the 2020 Aid Transparency Index and a gender-equal salary certification for the Gavi Secretariat for the third consecutive year. With a refreshed gender policy approved by our Board in June, a major focus of 2021 will be on elevating transformative approaches, addressing gender-related barriers to immunisation and responding to growing gender inequalities resulting from the pandemic.

Now, as we enter a new year, I wish I could say that 2021 will be easier. But with the first approved COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out, we face the extremely challenging task of deployment to ensure that high-risk people in all countries are protected so we can end the crisis. We are talking about the single largest and most rapid global deployment of vaccines the world has ever seen. Not only does that mean continuing to work with manufacturers to secure more doses, but also with countries to ensure they are ready to deliver and distribute them. And while we have already raised US$ 2.4 billion towards this effort, now, just half a year after the Global Vaccine Summit, we must urgently raise at least US$ 4.6 billion more to end the acute phase of the pandemic in 2021 by procuring at least 1.3 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses for lower-income countries through the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC).

In addition to this work, in 2021 Gavi will be looking for new ways to reach zero-dose children, as well as migrants and people in emergency settings; to prevent measles resurgence; to fight polio by introducing a second dose of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV); and to address the compound challenges of misinformation and vaccine hesitancy that have not only impacted routine immunisation, but also threaten the success of COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. That we can face such opposition and hesitancy to vaccines, at a time when we need them like never before, only emphasises the need to build bridges. Because it is only through listening and meaningful engagement that we can hope to address the genuine health concerns people may have, through scientific and evidence-based facts from reliable sources about the critical life-saving role that immunisation plays, and by elevating the expertise of the health worker heroes who are striving every day to keep the world healthy and safe.

It is them – the scientists, the health workers and all those who support them – to whom we raise our glasses as 2020 comes to a close. And to the success of COVAX, which will enable us to see each other once again in a healthier, more equitable, more prosperous world – one world, protected.

This has been an extraordinarily challenging year, but I would like to thank you for your incredible support and hard work. But we are not there yet. By continuing to work together, the beginning of the end of this terrible crisis is within sight, and we can be on the road of leaving no one behind with immunisation.

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Dr Seth Berkley is the Chief Executive Officer, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. ARTICLE REPRODUCED FROM THE GAVI WEBSITE (click)