Great news for Global Health

Sep 24th, 2009 1:12 PM EST
By Steve Wilson

It’s a crazy week with all that’s been going on in New York at the UN and Clinton Global Initiative but before the world’s attention turns to the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, I wanted to flag two pieces of great news on global health that came out this afternoon, which you understandably may have missed.

First, it was announced that an extra $1 billion has been secured in support of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), which funds major programmes to protect children from preventable diseases, such as pneumonia, measles, meningitis and diarrheal diseases. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown helped make the announcement yesterday during one of the many events in New York. GAVI will use the additional funding not only to support and distribute more vaccinations to save more children’s lives from these diseases, but also to improve health systems in comprehensive ways in poor countries.

ONE sees this as an especially important announcement in light of the fact of last week’s historic UNICEF report on child mortality, which found the number of children dying before their fifth birthdays each year had been cut to the lowest level ever on record—8.8 million. This progress was largely thanks to scaled up support for relatively inexpensive solutions, many of which GAVI supports, such as vaccinations and supplements.

However, the UNICEF report also found that although great gains were made thanks to the targeting of many major diseases, a lack of investment in pneumonia and diarrheal diseases have made them the two main causes of children’s deaths worldwide. Today’s $1 billion announcement means that vaccines that can help prevent deaths from these two diseases—which account for 3 million deaths each year—will be available soon at greatly reduced costs through GAVI.

As ONE’s President David Lane said in a press release ONE put out: “We know how to stop deaths from pneumonia and diarrheal diseases, but these conditions are the biggest killers of children under five. Today’s GAVI announcement is an important step to accelerate progress in areas where we’ve seen big results, but will also target more diseases that so far have not been targeted and that needlessly take the lives of children.”

The second big announcement was a new airline ticket programme that will allow you to voluntarily contribute $2 each time you fly to help fight global disease. The programme was announced today, also in New York, by the U.N. agency UNITAID, which is attached to the World Health Organization. UNITAID helps reduce the costs of treatment for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, making these lifesaving medicines available to those that need them.

As David Lane said in the press release: “Paying $2 to help save lives in the fight against preventable disease sure beats baggage fees.”

The initiative, which in particular will help fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa as well as help improve maternal health, is backed by several major travel industry companies, the Clinton Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Recipients of the donations will include UNICEF and the Clinton Foundation. It looks like you can expect to see the initiative start at airports this January.

We expect lots more news in the days ahead, so stay tuned to the blog. To read more about ONE’s reaction to today’s two announcements, you can see ONE’s full press release here.

-Steve Wilson

TAGS: HIV/AIDS, Health, Policy News, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Spotlight, UNAIDS, UNICEF, United Nations