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GAVI
The forgotten children – Vaccinating refugee camps in the developing world
In my capacity as Co-Chair of the UK All Party parliamentary Group for Global Action against Childhood Pneumonia (APPG) I have worked for many years to encourage greater roll out of vaccines globally. This work has seen some great successes, such as the work of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), who have rolled out a number of important vaccines, including the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. This has helped to save millions of lives and will save millions more in the future.
But through the work I have undertaken and meetings I have held, there have always seemed to be one significant population ignored – refugees. Due to the displacement suffered by refugees they fall between the vaccination programmes of different countries and the disorganised and overcrowded situation in most refugee camps makes coordinated vaccine rollout extremely difficult.
One camp in particular that I have recently been investigating is the infamous Dadaab refugee camp. Located in the North Eastern Province of Kenya, on the Kenya-Somalia border, the Dadaab camp is the world’s largest refugee complex. Established in 1991 as a temporary measure to help refugees fleeing conflict in Somalia, it is now home to around 430,000 inhabitants and is estimated to grow at a rate of 1,200 new arrivals every day. The Dadaab complex now ranks as the third largest population centre in Kenya after the capital Nairobi and the city of Mombasa.
It is estimated that around forty percent of children entering the Dadaab camp have received no vaccinations at all and, despite the efforts of a range of NGOs, malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory tract infections remain widespread in the complex. With such a high concentration of people, hygiene standards are extremely low and the complex suffers from a critical shortage of clean water.
But there is hope for the forgotten children of these camps as UNICEF are providing the latest vaccines against some of the biggest killers for children in the developing world. UNICEF are supplying vaccinations against pneumococcal disease, the leading killer of children under 5, and also against rotavirus, the second biggest killer of small children.
This is reassuring, but is by no means enough. We must develop a coordinated response to protect other refugee children in Africa, such as those in new camps for the 35,000 in Ethiopia fleeing the attacks on civilians in Sudan’s disputed Blue Nile state.
Many of the illnesses that spread through refugee camps are preventable through simple vaccines and with the continuing displacement of peoples globally it is time that a body was established with responsibility for rolling out vaccines to refugees. This is something the APPG will be looking into going forward – giving a voice to the unfortunate children who end up in these camps.
Lord Avebury is Co-Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for Global Action Against Childhood Pneumonia.
Protect children against severe diarrhoea: here is the long awaited vaccine!
Dr. Clarisse Loe Loumou of GAVI’s Civil Society Organization Constituency makes a major announcement that will affect the health of millions of children around the globe.
During my years of practice in the largest pediatric hospital of Cameroon in Yaoundé, I remember that the 300 beds were rarely empty. I was in charge of the gastroenterology and paediatric nutrition ward, where 28 beds were occupied more than 90 percent of the time by infants who were dehydrated and suffering from severe diarrhea.
Our problem was not the diarrhea itself — its treatment protocols are well known; oral re-hydration salts, adequate re-nutrition, zinc supplementation, intravenous (IV) fluids for the most severe cases — but in making real the possibility of preventing severe diarrhea. It was and still is common for children in Cameroon and other parts of Africa who are suffering from severe diarrhea to die due to limited access to oral re-hydration salts, IVs, clean drinking water, or even the inability to reach a hospital in time.
Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhea in children under five years of age worldwide, killing more than half a million children each year and hospitalizing millions more. Nearly 50 percent, or 230,000 of those rotavirus deaths, happen in Africa. Worldwide, more than one third of the 1.34 million diarrhea deaths in children under five years of age, and 40 percent of the 9 million diarrhea-related hospitalizations are due to rotavirus disease. In Africa, the percentage of rotavirus-related hospitalizations is even a bit higher at 41 percent. These facts may be little-known, yet diarrhea remains the primary cause of child mortality in Africa. In Cameroon, diarrhea is the third highest cause of death in children under five years old. Thirty percent of those diarrheal deaths are due to rotavirus.
We need to draw attention to the devastating role of rotavirus in causing death to millions of young children. My hopes of delivering a rotavirus vaccine across all of Africa must one day become a reality, not only to prevent hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, but to boost our fight against poverty.
And let’s not forget the economic costs of diarrhea; of hospitalization, of medications, of parents or caregivers who must stop work, and of young lives lost. This leads to a vicious circle, where diarrhea that is inadequately treated can cause malnutrition, which can decrease immunity and lead to further re-infection with diarrhea or other diseases. Vaccination offers the best hope for preventing severe rotavirus disease and the deadly dehydrating diarrhea that it causes.
I am proud that in July 2011, with the support of the GAVI Alliance, Cameroon introduced a vaccine against pneumococcal disease, the leading cause of pneumonia, and aims to introduce the rotavirus vaccine in 2013. None of this would be possible without political will, the active contribution of donors, and the efforts of the Government of Cameroon and its Immunization Programme, which have made the environment conducive to helping these life-saving vaccines reach the children who need them most.
I am delighted that our children are finally going to be protected against the main causes of diarrhea and pneumonia, the world’s two biggest killers of children under five and the leading killers here in Cameroon. There is no reason for such unjust deaths, and we now eagerly await the rotavirus vaccine to reach us in 2013.
Dr. Clarisse Loe Loumou, pediatrician and member of the Steering Committee of the GAVI Civil Society Organization Constituency.
Heartfelt thanks from GAVI’s CEO, Helen Evans
Just one week after the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations’ (GAVI) successful pledging conference, Helen Evans, interim CEO of GAVI, dropped by ONE’s Washington DC office this week to say thanks.
Check out her heartfelt message to all the ONE members around the world who campaigned on behalf of GAVI and child vaccines:
USAID Chief Raj Shah in London
Off the back of the success of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization conference on Monday –where donors committed $4.3 billion to save 4 million lives in 5 years – USAID Administrator Dr Raj Shah delivered a lecture at the London School of Economics. His theme was results-based development assistance and the direction in which he is taking the agency since his appointment in late 2009.
GAVI was of course high on the agenda – and ONE congratulated Dr Shah on the US pledge of $450million to GAVI over 3 years. A multi-year commitment is a rarity in US development assistance, and Congress will need to approve, however it shows huge intent on behalf of the US.
He emphasised that GAVI showed the power of results-driven, effective, smart aid which is proven to be a cost effective way of ending the deaths of children from preventable diseases, such as pneumonia and diarrhoea. He also expressed the critical nature of the GAVI Alliance itself in that it combines philanthropy, the public sector and the private sector.
More broadly, Dr Shah stressed the integral role of development in US foreign policy, despite the constrained economic environment in which they and many other Western countries were currently operating. Another potent message in Dr Shah’s speech was the willingness of USAID to reach out to all civil society groups no matter their location or size and the emphasis on the continuing role for developed countries.
Agriculture is the “development challenge of our lifetime” he told us. He highlighted the role new technologies and infrastructure could play in agriculture policy and how effective investment in infrastructure for agriculture was already reaping benefits for countries like Ghana and Tanzania. Political will and breakthrough inventions in medicines and healthcare would be significant in future global development strategy he concluded.
You’re amazing. Thank you.
For months now, we’ve been asking our ONE members to give it all they have on our vaccine campaign. We asked our members to use every advocacy tool and skill they had to make sure that we won this important fight to save 4 million children in five years. Thanks to this hard work we generated more than 300,000 signatures on our petition.
ONE members sent hundreds of letters to members of parliament in the UK, and in the USA we swamped the Whitehouse with tweets. In South America our volunteers recruited thousands of new members who have added to the weight of our international voice. In Australia ONE members called and emailed the foreign minister’s office, and in Germany the outstanding youth messengers were hard at work gathering support.
Because of your skill at advocacy, your hard work and a ton of determination, it worked. We won!
On Monday in London, world leaders and private donors promised a remarkable $4.3 Billion over the next 5 years – this exceeded the $3.7billion that we hoped for. When Bill Gates announced he was contributing a billion dollars to the fund, he mentioned our campaigning work in his speech.
This really has been a historic week and our Executive Director Jamie Drummond made this video to thank you.
As a campaigner for ONE, I can’t tell you how proud I am of each and every one of you and you all should be very proud of yourselves.
It just goes to show that when we use our voices and work together, we can make amazing, lasting change in the world. So, give yourselves a well-deserved pat on the back and tell us how you feel in the comments below. Thanks to you, millions of kids around the world have a brighter future.
Good news: Donors pledge total of $4.3 billion to GAVI
The good news in development often gets buried, deep below wars and debt and disaster. But today, world leaders made bold new pledges to the GAVI Alliance in support of child vaccines, making the choice clear for reporters, press secretaries and live-tweeters alike: today was going to be a good news day.
David Cameron, Andrew Mitchell, Bill Gates and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, together with members of the GAVI board
In fact, in spite of tough economic times, donors collectively pledged $4.3 billion between now and 2015 — surpassing GAVI’s $3.7 billion funding gap — setting GAVI and its partners on the path toward saving nearly 4 million children’s lives in the next 5 years.
Some notable pledges from the donor pool:
For a full breakdown of who committed what, visit GAVI’s website.
Of course, as advocates and legislators know well, pledges made do not always equal money in the bank, and so today marks just the first, critical step in our efforts to improve access to new and underutilized vaccines.
Today we can celebrate, though, after world leaders have affirmed with their pledges what we’ve been campaigning on for months: investing in vaccines for the world’s poorest children is a smart, cost-effective way to save lives.
Thanks to ONE members for your hard work on behalf of this campaign. Stay tuned for more GAVI analysis and commentary from ONE over the coming days.
Vaccines conference exceeds target to save 4 million lives in 4 hours
Today has seen an incredible campaign success for ONE and our partners. World leaders have promised a remarkable $4.3 billion over the next 5 years to support the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) in their drive to save lives by making new and underused vaccines available in the world’s poorest countries. This is well over the target of $3.7 billion.
The tremendous response from the international community means that GAVI will not only be able to meet demand for new vaccines against diarrhea and pneumonia, but also make an early start on its next priorities and redouble efforts to reach the poorest children in the most remote areas.
More than 300,000 ONE members took action on this crucial issue over recent weeks and signed our petition to world leaders, leaving them in no doubt they needed take the incredible opportunity to help save 4 million more lives over the next 5 years.
Today is a huge victory for mothers and children around the world in the fight against extreme poverty. It is extraordinary that the success of this conference can literally be counted in the millions of lives it has saved. UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Bill Gates should both be proud of their moral leadership and generosity that has helped secure this result. Leaders from USA, Norway, Sweden, Australia and around the world have lived-up to their responsibilities and secured the future for millions of children.
ONE also welcomed the European Commission finding additional funds to contribute to GAVI, and the Commission’s ongoing commitment to supporting country health systems. We now look to the Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to give a more ambitious share of the Commission’s overseas development aid in the next long-term budget.
The GAVI alliance is a leading example of smart, innovative aid that really works, supporting families across Africa. Vaccines deliver measurable and cost-effective results.
Effective international aid has already helped put 46 million children in Africa in school since 1999 and more than 500 million people have been reached with antimalarial bednets in the past 2 years alone. Now millions of mothers in the poorest countries will be able to vaccinate their children against some of the deadliest diseases thanks to your support.
Thank you to everyone who took action. We really couldn’t have done it without you.
EU Commissioner’s message to ONE members
Andris Piebalgs, the man in charge of the world’s second biggest aid budget (the EU Development Commissioner) spoke with us this afternoon from the GAVI conference and reflected that the action called for by over 300,000 ONE members was heard by politicians, when they agreed to increase funding for vaccines today. He also talked about the importance of the work of GAVI, and the fantastic results of today’s pledging conference.
Commissioner Piebalgs has announced an EU pledge for an extra €10 million over the next three years. Speaking to the 300,000 ONE members who signed our vaccines petition, he also showed his commitment to increasing the EU’s commitment in the future by saying: ‘I hope in future we can increase our pledge to GAVI’. This has boosted hopes for an ambitious increase for GAVI in the next long-term budget of the EU. ONE is asking the Commissioner to allocate €50 million each year to GAVI in the next seven year budget starting from 2014, and your voices as ONE members will be crucial in getting us there. The Commission spends over €500 million per year on helping developing countries to improve their overall health systems, which ONE applauds, and we look forward to working closely with the Commission over the coming months to make sure that the EU’s new development policy serves the very poorest and helps achieve the vital Millennium Development Goals (poverty reduction targets all governments agreed, due to be achieved by 2015).
Grassroots impact on a global scale
More than 30 ONE members and supporters were outside the hotel where the GAVI pledging conference was being held in London at 7.30am this morning, campaigning for two new vaccines against two of the biggest killers of children in the poorest of countries.
With over 300,000 people signed up to support this campaign, we wanted to ensure that world leaders, delegates and the media couldn’t avoid our call as they arrived at the conference.
Supportive placards and a banner helped send a clear reminder that they had just 4 hours to save another 4 million lives. Footage of our team outside the conference was used on BBC News all day, and our activists were even mentioned by Bill Gates at the start of his speech – highlighting the impact that you as our grassroots membership can truly have.
We chanted in 3 languages to have the widest reach possible among delegates, people in the street stopped to ask what our campaign was for, and got a thumbs up in support from UK International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, as he arrived.
After the final total of funds pledged was announced at a brilliant $4.3 billion – even more than we were hoping for – Bill Gates came outside to thank ONE members for our support.
Thank you to those who joined us early this morning to make sure that our collective voice was heard by world leaders. But every single one of you who signed our petition played a part in today’s success, giving millions of children a chance, so thank you too.
This is my first blog for ONE, I joined the team in London last week as UK Campaigns Manager, and very much look forward to meeting and working with many of you on the campaigns ahead.
The GAVI Alliance’s pledging conference – an opportunity to save 4 million lives
I am delighted that today the GAVI Alliance’s pledging conference for immunisations is taking place in London. As a UK parliamentarian it is an honour for us to be hosting such a landmark conference and I think that it reflects the commitment that the UK Coalition Government (of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) has shown to international development.
For the past four years I have been an officer of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for Global Action Against Childhood Pneumonia (APPG). Our group is made up of MPs and Lords from all parties in both Houses of Parliament. I have witnessed first hand the impact that lifesaving vaccines, such as the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, can make in the developing world.
Pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of children in the developing world accounting for nearly 20% of all under 5 child deaths. Through the work of the APPG I have seen the toll this takes on countries. For many years I have had close links with parliamentarians, doctors and friends in Bangladesh. According to the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases and Research, Bangladesh, 55,000 children die every year of pneumonia in Bangladesh making it the leading cause of childhood mortality. This burden is enormous and places a huge restraint on country, as so many of their young are lost at an early age.
But, reducing the impact is possible as Bangladesh has shown. In 2009 Bangladesh introduced the HIB vaccine, which is estimated to save up to 20,000 lives every year. It is extraordinary that a third of Bangladesh’s childhood mortality from pneumonia is able to be cut from the introduction of one vaccine.
That is why today’s conference is so important. Countries such as Bangladesh need the help of the GAVI Alliance to introduce life-saving vaccines. But the GAVI Alliance cannot carry out this work unless donors provide the financial support they need, which is estimated to be $3.7 billion.
I am pleased that the UK has agreed to meet an increased share of this cost and today we need others to follow suit. We already know that for instance, Australia is increasing its contribution tenfold, a brilliant start to the day! This and other generous help will enable the GAVI Alliance to immunise 243 million children and save four million deaths by 2015. It is undoubtedly a huge amount of money, but donors such as the UK say it’s the most cost-effective they know of. Countries such as Kenya, Yemen, Nicaragua and Sierra Leone have introduced the vaccine and are now able to fight back against this terrible disease and other countries deserve a similar opportunity.
On behalf of the APPG I urge governments and organisations across the world to help meet the GAVI Alliance’s funding gap and help give countries the chance to reduce the deadly impact of this preventable, protectable and treatable disease.
Lord Avebury is Co-Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for Global Action Against Childhood Pneumonia.
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The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: GAVI, Kenya, Partners, Refugees, Vaccines