NGO Partners
MTV Africa’s Vanessa Mdee: ‘This is a new dawn for young African women’
Our guest blogger today is the MTV Africa VJ, singer and activist from Tanzania, Vanessa Mdee. Writing as an ambassador for the GAVI Alliance, her post celebrates the recent news that the HPV vaccine to protect women and girls from cervical cancer is set to drop in price for 50 of the world’s poorest countries.
I’m trying to think of the first time my mother had ‘The Talk’ (yes the birds and the bees talk) with me. The talk that I’d heard my friends refer to as the most embarrassing moment of their lives, the talk that officially indicted you into teen-hood, the talk that signified your maturity – your parents decided you were old enough to speak of natural human interaction between a man and a woman. I’m still eagerly awaiting this talk.
Now don’t be fooled, my mother knows all too well that I’m aware of physical interaction. Not because I told her but because she’s got that sixth sense like all mothers do. Besides, I am of age and slightly adventurous (for lack of a better word).
I gather I never put my parents in a place where they felt the need to have this conversation with me. I did after all grow up in a Muslim turned every Sunday church-going Roman Catholic home – where I obviously wasn’t having sex. My parents were right – not because I was holier than the next but the mere thought of them finding out crippled me. You see, growing up in an African home as exposed and worldly as my upbringing was, meant certain things were not discussed. This remains the case to date. My line of work has allowed me to converse intimately with young African women and girls, and their stories are similar. Sex talk is a no go.
When I started DynamitesMission – my awareness blog sponsored by UNAIDS and MTV’s Staying Alive – I wanted to lend my voice and extend my ear to the streets. I was learning about grassroots organisations and their efforts to educate their communities. I was moved and in turn spoke from my perspective – pretty layman but clear to other laymen.
A year in, I get a BBM from one of my best friends Michelle. It read, ‘ You’re trying to tell me that above all the heartache we take from these men, they also pass HPV (the virus that causes cervical cancer) to us?’ – I chuckled and said ‘ Yes Elle, they do – talk about short end of the stick’. Many women are unaware of cervical cancer and HPV, mostly about how exposed we are to the virus through our everyday interaction.
My first personal encounter with cervical cancer was in my early teens. My aunt was diagnosed with it at a very late stage and when her health deteriorated I remember wondering what she had done to deserve this and why the meds weren’t working. I kept asking my father – why she wasn’t getting better. Only to properly understand the severity as she passed away after being bed ridden for two weeks.
When a woman is diagnosed with cervical cancer in Tanzania there is a 70% chance she will not survive. Experts agree that the low survival rate is due to late diagnosis and treatment by a healthcare provider. It wasn’t until I was approached by GAVI that I found out that there now is a vaccine and that if administered early (before young women become sexually active) then we can ensure a brighter future for our women and decrease the numbers of cervical cancer cases.
Young women need to be aware of these opportunities that can be availed but most importantly the knowledge of HPV and cervical cancer – I truly believe these formative years will define their sexual reproductive health and nurture a generation of healthier women. It starts with open communication about sex and sexual reproductive health.
2013 is the beginning of a dramatic shift in women’s health. A record low price for a HPV vaccine has been negotiated by GAVI for the 50+ countries eligible for GAVI support (including my home country, Tanzania), opening the door for millions of girls in the world’s poorest countries to be immunized against a devastating women’s cancer.
This not only is the beginning of a shift in the overall eradication of cervical cancer but a new dawn for young African women around the continent. An opportunity that myself and many other young African women did not have.
It breaks my heart to see lives cut short due to ailments. In Africa these losses happen often and deprive our societies. It’s about time proper healthcare is administered for all, especially the future generation. GAVI is making this possible by pioneering the administration of the HPV vaccine. Giving my younger sisters a chance – that’s one less killer to worry about.
Find out more about the great news on the price drop for HPV vaccines on the GAVI Alliance website.
Good news! Price of vaccinations for 5 deadly diseases to drop
Children playing at break time at Mwangaza Tumaini school in Kenya. Vaccinations mean more children stay healthy and in school for those essential early years of learning. Photo: Morgana Wingward
Today the GAVI Alliance announced that the cost of immunising millions of the world’s most vulnerable children against five deadly and debilitating diseases is set to fall, thanks to a major price reduction of one third for pentavalent vaccine.
Pentavalent vaccines target five infectious diseases (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and influenzae type B) in a single shot.
GAVI, which uses an innovative public-private partnership model to introduce new and affordable vaccines to children in particular in the poorest countries, secured a supply agreement with Biological E Ltd of India, which makes the five-in-one shot available to GAVI for just US$1.19 per dose, compared to the 2012 price of US$2.17.
By the end of the year, an additional 200 million children will be protected from five deadly diseases, and US$ 150mn will be saved over the next four years. By 2020, more than 7 million deaths can this way be averted.
Back in 2011, ONE members played an important part in ensuring that donors gave GAVI the funding it needed for its 2011-15 funding cycle. Having ensured this funding is a feat in itself, but the rewards – millions of lives saved – is an achievement worth celebrating. Thank you!
The announcement comes shortly before the Global Vaccine Summit that will be held in Abu Dhabi on 24-25 April, during World Immunisation Week. We’ll be sharing at the latest news from the summit next week, plus featuring stories from all our partners working on the front line of vaccinations around the world.
You Choose: What people are saying
As the current Millennium Development Goals meet their goal-line in 2015, it’s more important than ever to ensure the world’s poorest people have a say in the development of the next set of goals to eradicate extreme poverty.
To this end, ONE launched the pilot You Choose campaign in South Africa, Malawi and Zambia, as a contribution and complementary to the United Nations MY World effort.
Working with more than 20 NGO, faith and private sector partners across Africa, together with some of the continents best-known celebrities including Hugh Masekela, D’banj, Benni McCarthy and Chris Katongo, we are urging people to join the fight against extreme poverty and send their views on what issues matter most to them.
And as the UN High Level Panel meets this week in Bali, we have published our preliminary findings based on the early stages of the campaign.
Our interim results show that more than 130,000 citizens have offered valid responses in the three target countries.
You can download the findings here.
Check out the ONE blog in the coming weeks for more news on the campaign, which runs until the end of April.
One year closer to ending neglected tropical diseases
By Dr. Neeraj Mistry, managing director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)are a group of bacterial and parasitic diseases that infect more than 1 billion people living in poverty around the world.
It’s the start of a new year, and in many ways the beginning of 2013 is like all others. People make lists, set goals and get ready to start fresh and achieve great things. For the global health and development community, we are a year closer to achieving a larger goal — controlling and eliminating neglected tropical disease (NTDs) by 2020.
Photo Caption: A child leads his grandfather who has gone blind from onchocerciasis, one of the most common NTDs. Photo by Olivier Asselin, courtesy of Sabin Vaccine Institute.
One in six people worldwide are infected with NTDs, diseases that cause blindness, malnutrition, anemia and other disabilities. Not only are these diseases devastating to people’s health, they also reduce worker productivity and school attendance, reinforcing poverty in affected communities.
This month we’re celebrating the one-year anniversary of a more unified effort to tackle this big challenge. And the best part is that we already have a viable solution; many of these diseases are treatable using existing medicines donated by industry partners.
Last January a group of public and private partners came together to address NTDs. They endorsed The London Declaration on NTDs, an unprecedented pledge to work toward the World Health Organization’s (WHO) goal of controlling or eliminating 10 NTDs by 2020.
The progress of the last year is detailed in a new report, where major milestones include:
- More than 1 billion treatments donated by partners in the pharmaceutical industry
- National NTD control and elimination plans developed in more than 40 affected countries
- A new scorecard to track progress and increase transparency
This report was issued in coordination with a second progress report from WHO, documenting the specific efforts of partners and affected countries in the past two years, which have helped to fast-track many programs in order to achieve measurable impact.
On this important anniversary, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, in partnership with Hudson Institute’s Center for Science in Public Policy, also released a new report, “Social and Economic Impact Review on Neglected Tropical Diseases,” highlighting the crucial links between NTDs and broader economic and societal consequences.
Director-General of WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, commended the progress, and noted: “The challenge now is to strengthen capacity of national disease programmes in endemic countries and streamline supply chains to get the drugs to the people who need them, when they need them.”
If success breeds more success, then the accomplishments detailed in these reports are surely indicative of accelerated progress in the years to come. So break out the champagne and raise a glass—but be ready to roll up your sleeves, because there’s more work to be done!
Wondering how you can get involved? The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases invites you to join our END7 campaign. You can learn more about these diseases and take action through our Facebook page or by visiting our website. Together we can see the end.
Africa Kicks Malaria: How football stars are outscoring malaria
Guest blog post from Malaria No More.
Last summer the Confederation of African Football endorsed United Against Malaria partnership – of which Malaria No More is a key member – as a premier social cause of the most-followed events in Africa: the 2013 Cup of Nations (AFCON) football tournament.
The most revered champions of Africa’s best loved sport talking about malaria during Africa’s most watched public events? A captive audience of 6.6 billion people, most of them living in malaria-endemic Africa? What could be more captivating!
The biggest names in African football and the top political leaders in Africa’s malaria fight signed onto the campaign, and lent their time to record public messages about malaria for their African audience. These include five elite footballers and five African presidents, including football legends Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o, and the first-ever female African head of state, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. TV, radio ads, and billboards were created which feature the players and presidents, targeting policy-makers and decision makers about investments in malaria programs, as well promoting calls-to-action with simple steps to prevent and treat malaria.
Didier Drogba’s Malaria Prevention PSA
To ensure these malaria messages are heard by football fanatics continent-wide, 10 pan-African TV/radio stations, including the biggest radio station in Africa and the official football tournament channel, advertisements in over 10 countries, and 75 billboards in more than 13 countries are helping get the job done.
In addition to the tremendous media support, the campaign launched at the African Union Summit to include more African Heads of State, and a TV spot about the campaign aired during the AFCON Draw and East Africa CECAFA tournament. During the AFCON games, the campaign will be included during AFCON half-times (when football fans are already tuned into watch their favorite footballers), in AFCON sportscasters’ dialogue during televised games, and at the AFCON Final Game’s closing ceremony?
Football stars in malaria prevention billboards around Africa
For Africa’s social media users, a 2-minute quiz is available on the United Against Malaria Facebook page for the chance to win Drogba-autographed swag, like a football or a jersey.
Learn more about the campaign and be sure to follow the AFCON games live at www.supersport.com/live-video.
Mali: Warm Welcome Amid Turmoil
This is a guest blog from Helen Blakesley at Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Read more about CRS here.
I’m very big on atmospheres. I’m one of those people who walk into a room and can just tell whether its inhabitants are feeling generally perky…or whether they’ve just had a blazing row.
Wherever I travel for Catholic Relief Services, around West and Central Africa, I subconsciously seem to work out whether I like the “feel” of a place. So when I arrived in Mali last week, my antennae were twitching.
Mali, a country nestled in the middle of West Africa, is a nation divided in two right now. Since a military coup destabilized the political landscape earlier this year, various rebel groups occupy (and are vying for control of) the north – an area the size of Texas. Reports of atrocities against the people living there abound – killings, maiming, rape, recruiting of children as soldiers. For all these reasons, over two hundred thousand people have left their homes and fled to neighboring countries. Another two hundred thousand have moved south, many to the capital, Bamako. These are some of the people CRS is helping and these were the people I had come to meet.
Photo: Three-year-old Saouda Keita is living in rented rooms in a Bamako suburb in Mali with 16 other members of her family. CRS distributions cash each month for people like the Keitas who have fled their homes in northern Mali, after rebels took control of the area. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS
Before I arrived, I’d been told that tourism to Mali had all but dried up now. What was once a steady stream of visitors to this historic country so rich in culture and music, had stymied to a trickle. Even CRS had changed policy so that international staff couldn’t bring their kids anymore, if posted there.
So I wasn’t expecting the vibe. The great, friendly, relaxed feeling I got from Bamako – a leafy city sprawling from the banks of the River Niger. Sure there was urban bustle, but there was a friendliness, a welcoming cheer just under the surface. Can’t be an easy feat, when folks must be worried about what’s happening elsewhere in their country and about what the future holds.
With the thermometer nearly a full 20 degrees (F) more than in my home-away-from-home of Dakar, Senegal, I’m taken by a CRS team to visit some ‘IDPs’ – the catchy acronym for those who’ve fled within their own country: Internally Displaced People. In Bamako, some are staying with relatives, others with host families and some are renting rooms – if they can afford it.
As always, before meeting with people who’ve been through something traumatic, I ask myself “Will they want to speak with me?” and remind myself to go gently with them.
Photo: Hawa Toure, left, sits with other members of her family, who are taking refuge at their relative’s home in Bamako, Mali. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS
We visit the Touré family at their home in the Attbougou neighborhood. Already a family of twenty-four, they welcomed thirty-two more relatives who escaped the Gao region of the North. Some made other arrangements or travelled elsewhere, but right now there are fourteen people sharing one living room, two bedrooms and one bathroom.
I sit with Moctar, the head of the household, a retired customs officer with cropped white hair and a youthful passion when he talks. “We’re tired, so tired,” he confides. “Sometimes I think we’re done for!”
I chat with family members who made the journey from Gao. I’m struck by their openness, their willingness to tell me their story. A little cat comes over for an inquisitive look. There’s laughter. Moctar’s daughter Fatimata tells me “when you’re with your family, there is always joy”. But the tension is also there, the worry, the fatigue. Twelve-year-old Aminata’s eyes brim with tears as she admits, “I miss my friends”.
CRS is trying to help ease some of the worry with cash distributions each month. Targeting the poorest and most vulnerable, CRS gives around sixteen dollars per person to help cover basic food needs or rent costs.
At the next home I visit, the two women who are head of the household (their husbands stayed behind in Gao to look after the family shop) are using that money for rent. They wanted to take the pressure off their host family, so have found three rooms for themselves and their fifteen children.
“We’re thankful to CRS,” Mariam Dembélé tells me. “You’ve given us our dignity back”. As her sister-in-law Fanta Poudiougou explains how older members of the family couldn’t or wouldn’t leave home to come with them to Bamako, both women fill up with tears. I can’t help following suit. They’re afraid what the planned military intervention in the north will mean for the civilians left up there. But they also can’t see another way to liberate their country from the extremist rebel groups.
During my stay in Mali, over three thousand people gathered in Bamako for a peaceful march against religious extremism. They wanted the world to know that the rebels in the north were not representative of their country – some indeed don’t even come from Mali, but are there to take advantage of a fragile state. Also during my stay, another European was kidnapped. A French man in his 60’s who was in the west of the country – not even near the occupied territory. These are complex and concerning times for Mali.
As I boarded the shuttle bus at the airport that was to take me to my return flight home, I saw a sight which struck me as symbolic. The guy checking us for weapons was holding his prayer beads in one hand, the metal detector in the other. A visual embodiment of the fact that religion and security can co-exist. I would love to think it is a good omen for the path Mali will tread.
Helen Blakesley is CRS’ regional information officer for West and Central Africa. She is based in Dakar, Senegal.
But how will it get there?
Malaka Gharib is currently at the GAVI Partners Forum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where global health and government leaders are gathering to explore ways to accelerate results, innovation, sustainability and equity in the field of immunization.
What do you think one of the biggest issues in vaccines and immunizations is? That’s an easy one, right? Making sure that every country in the world has access to vaccines, of course!
Baby receiving the pneumococcal vaccine
Well, actually, we achieved universal child immunization – way back in 1990. Thanks to collaboration between WHO, UNICEF, countries and suppliers, a system was put in place to bring immunization coverage to nearly 80 percent of the global birth cohort. And it’s a system that’s worked well for a long time.
But now, that system is breaking down. The GAVI Alliance reports that 9 of the 24 countries in which they operate have poor vaccine stock management and vaccine distribution. And more than 20 percent of the GAVI countries’ vaccines go to waste above the expected rate.
It’s not hard to see why. The introduction of new vaccines and increased coverage targets is putting “business as usual” at risk. Since the 1980s, kids need 3 times more vaccine doses per child and there are 2.5 times more diseases to vaccinate. Looking into the future, experts believe that we’ll need 4 times more fridges (vaccines need to stay cold) between 2001 and 2020.
Preparing the pneumococcal vaccine
The conversation now is about how to make the system better, how to make transport of vaccines more reliable, and how to protect and preserve vaccines. The solution that experts are proposing is a clear one: countries need to take ownership of their vaccine supply chain (also called the “cold chain,” since vaccines are temperature-controlled). And they need to be super creative about it, because every country has its own situation and infrastructure – it can’t be a one-size-fits all strategy.
Transportation of vaccines in Nicaragua: By horseback!
I had the wonderful opportunity to listen to supply chain experts like Michel Zaffran from the World Health Organization, Dmitri Davydov from UNICEF and Dr. Bruce Lee from the University of Pittsburgh, and country health officials from Benin, Tanzania and Uganda discuss this issue at the GAVI Partners Forum yesterday. I was particularly interested in listening to some of the innovative ways that countries were tackling some of the challenges with their vaccine supply chain.
- Hon. Huda Oleru from Uganda’s Parliamentary Forum for Immunization, says that they’re using an SMS tool called U-Report to crowdsource problems with the vaccines distribution system from Ugandan citizens. She says that her team is using the feedback to learn about some of the holes in the Ugandan supply chain – and fix them.
- Dr. Bruce Lee leads the team that developed a software called HERMES, a computational tool to design, plan and manage vaccine supply chains. What’s neat about it is that it can even predict estimated future needs, which will help in reducing vaccine wastage, stock outs and problems with storage. Currently, it’s being tested in Benin, Thailand and Niger.
Fridges are an important part of the vaccine cold chain.
- The World Health Organization, GAVI, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are finding that the cold chain itself is a barrier to routine immunizations – and it’s not getting the funding it needs. The world needs to invest more in cold chain hardware, like fridges and packaging. And there’s some cool stuff that they’re looking at on the horizon, including solar-powered fridges and vacuum insulation that lasts for up to 30 days.
ONE members fought hard last year to make sure that world leaders gave GAVI the funding it needed for their pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines – and we succeeded. But now, it’s up to countries to ensure that these much-needed vaccines actually get to the people who need it most. There will be more vaccines to distribute and more people to immunize in the future – and if countries can find the holes now, strengthen their supply chain and invest in technologies, we can achieve GAVI Board Chair Dagfinn Hoybraten’s one wish for the world: “that the children may live.”
Follow @ONEinAfrica and #GAVIPartners for live tweets from the GAVI Partners Forum.
Combating HIV in Turkana County, Kenya – a personal view
The following is a guest blog from Dr. Allan Mayi who is a Senior Technical Advisor (ART) with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) and coordinates the EGPAF – Tunaweza Project based in Lodwar, Turkana County (Kenya).
I have been working with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) for the last five years. Before that, I was with the Kenyan Ministry of Health for another five years. During these 10 years of working in the general health field and in HIV/AIDS programs in various capacities, I have witnessed a lot of growth and changes – from the days of monotherapy with Zidovudine, to days when there were no public HIV programs, to the advent of adult HIV programs and later pediatric HIV programs. As we mark World AIDS Day 2012, I feel that there is a lot to be proud of, but I also have the somber realization that a lot still needs to be done. Here in Kenya, there has been significant progress towards combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and a lot of credit is due to the Kenyan government and donor governments and funding agencies, along with the various implementing partners. But so much still needs to be done, especially in hard-to-reach areas, like where I work in Turkana County.
Turkana County is one of the largest counties in Kenya and covers an area of 77,000 square kms. It borders three countries—Uganda, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. It is an arid/semi-arid region whose main economic activity is nomadic pastoralism. This has accompanying challenges of insecurity, including conflicts with neighbouring nomadic pastoralist tribes over pastures and water. The migratory lifestyles and generalized poverty adversely affects the provision of health services in the county, and HIV/AIDS programs are not exempt. The distances to health facilities are long – about 50 km – and the public transport system is poorly developed, as only the big town centers have public transport systems. Therefore, rates of defaulting from treatment are high in Turkana. Nutrition is also a major challenge – patients commonly remark that they have the medicines but have to take them on an empty stomach, which can be very painful.
Photo: A healthcare worker supported by EGPAF provides HIV counseling and testing to a family outside their manyatta in Turkana. (A manyatta is a simple traditional house built of twigs and grass by nomadic pastoralists)
Turkana is a difficult place to work in, and more often than not, the staff is called upon to go beyond the normal call of duty.
Photo: Staff from EGPAF and the Ministry of Health sleep on the verandah of Kalemnyang dispensary after a support supervision visit. There was no accommodation in the nearby town, and Lodwar town was 180 km away on rough roads by night. The only option was to sleep at the facility and continue with work the next day. Local residents often sleep “outside,” but for the uninitiated like me, it was a unique experience.
Turkana area is also prone to flash floods, and in the normal course of duty, we have been marooned by flood waters on several occasions, forcing us to sit out for several hours waiting for the waters to subside.
Photo: This river bed was dry when we crossed on the way to visit our site, but on the return journey it was completely flooded, forcing us to sit out for about four hours before we could safely cross the bridge. Another agency’s vehicle was swept away attempting to cross the bridge.
In spite of these challenges posed by the burden of the HIV disease itself, generalized poverty, and the harsh environment in which we work, the EGPAF staff continue to do their best to combat HIV in Turkana County and hope that by World AIDS Day 2013, we will be able to say that there have been major improvements in people’s lives and health in our region.
2012 ONE Africa Award: Changing the Tide in the Fight Against AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis
Our next finalist for the 2012 ONE Africa Award is the dynamic organization Friends of the Global Fund Africa, or better known as Friends Africa. I visited Friends Africa in Lagos last month to hear their incredible story.
After serving as a technical advisor on Global Fund-financed projects in Nigeria for three years in the early 2000s, Dr. Akudo Ikemba realized that more needed to be done in order to ensure the effectiveness of Global Fund monies on the ground. She also saw an untapped need to raise awareness and support for the Global Fund amongst African citizens. When she saw some of the work being done by Friends of the Fight (USA) and Amis du Fonds Mondial and other Global Fund partners, she realized that Africa needed its own “Friends” that could bring governments, business leaders and citizens together to build support for the Global Fund and further its work by raising funds and commitments from African political and corporate leaders. At about the same time, the Global Fund invited Dr. Ikemba to discuss the formation of a partner organization for Africa and a few months later, Friends Africa officially opened its door in Lagos.
Since 2006, Friends Africa has been at the forefront of building and demonstrating African support for the Global Fund. It has raised commitments of $31 million through its Africa Champions from Health campaign, which enlists former heads of states and political leaders to call on African governments to support the the fund’s work. Through its Gift from Africa program, it has secured an additional $5 million from the private and corporate sectors for the Global Fund since 2010.
How does it do this? By strategically using former African heads of state, titans of business, and artists to engage governments and leading enterprises to obtain commitments for the Global Fund. As the developed world faces budget and fiscal crises, it is increasingly important for the developing world to not only support the work of institutions like the Global Fund, but also contribute to its functioning and financing. Friends Africa is doing just this.
Raising the funds and financing for an institution like the Global Fund, though, is just one side of the coin that is Friends Africa. In addition to its high level advocacy, Friends Africa is changing the face of the fight against HIV, malaria and tuberculosis every day. They have extensive programs that are building capacity at local, national and regional levels to engage in advocacy and direct services in their communities. Moreover, Friends Africa is also leading the charge in engaging small to medium enterprises – not just corporate giants – on the policies they have in place for their employees facing these diseases. Friends Africa is truly leading an African response to an African problem, taking the fight to the board rooms and the store rooms of African businesses. To truly turn the tide against these killer diseases, Friends Africa has gone where many have yet to tread—to the enterprising leaders and employers of a bulk of Africa’s hardworking citizens. Friends Africa is not only funding the fight, but also changing the face of these diseases to reduce stigmatization and stereotypes.
And while high-level and grassroots advocacy is a big part of Friends Africa’s work, Friends also produces reports that policy makers and citizens can use around the continent. They are impacting the debates without necessarily being in the room, and leveraging a network of consultants to provide technical assistance to governments seeking funding for reproductive health and HIV projects. As one can see, Friends Africa not only advocates at all levels, but also provides its own substantive contribution to the ongoing struggle against these diseases.
Working as partners to save lives
The following is a guest blog from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) Board Chair Dagfinn Hoybraten
As I was writing my new book, my granddaughter of 6 asked me what I was up to. I am writing my book, I said. What is it on? She asked. On what grandpa thinks is most important. Do you know what grandpa thinks is most important? That the children may live, she replayed with a big smile.
She is so right, and that is also the common goal behind the efforts of the partners working together in the GAVI Alliance: That the children may live.
What would it take to protect a child against five diseases with a single vaccine in a country like Haiti, which is still rebuilding after the devastating 2010 earthquake? Or to bring vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhoea, two of the biggest killers of children in developing countries, to places such as Pakistan and Yemen? Or to target Africa’s meningitis belt by reaching 100 million people less than two years into a mass vaccination campaign?
It takes partnership, and the belief that by working together those of us who are passionate about saving lives and improving health can accomplish much more than we could on our own. Since 2000, GAVI has been able to save more than 5 million lives and will work to save an additional 4 million by 2015. This is possible by working as an alliance whose partners include UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, governments and pharmaceutical companies in the developed and developing worlds, research institutes, and civil society and advocacy organisations such as ONE and many others.
Later this week, more than 600 global health leaders will come together in Dar es Salaam for the GAVI Alliance Partners’ Forum. The United Republic of Tanzania is the perfect place for this three-day event, which will include a dual introduction of pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines and discussions aimed at advancing access to vaccines and immunisation. In 2010 pneumonia accounted for 15% of child mortality in Tanzania, according to the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And yet, according to 2011 estimates from WHO and UNICEF, Tanzania’s vaccine coverage rate against key causes of child pneumonia meet or exceed targets that if adopted worldwide could prevent two-thirds of child pneumonia deaths.
GAVI’s mission underscores the themes of the Partners’ Forum, which are Results, Innovation, Sustainability and Equity (RISE). Those who are unable to join us in Tanzania can follow the conversation on the GAVI website, where we’ll be streaming some of the sessions, and on Twitter at #GAVIpartners.
The results of our work lie not only in the number of lives saved or lives we hope to save but in the fact that an additional 370 million children in the world’s poorest countries now have an opportunity to grow up healthy and contribute to their communities. Innovation is at the heart of what makes vaccines one of the most cost-effective ways to save lives. GAVI uses several funding mechanisms to raise funds in international capital markets and stimulate the development and supply of vaccines to make them affordable for developing countries. By using these tools to shape vaccine markets and lower costs, countries are able to sustain their commitment to providing immunisation after they graduate from GAVI support. Even the world’s poorest countries take pride in contributing to the cost of their vaccines. This reinforces the fact that they are equal partners in this effort. Equity drives a central goal of our work to dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes for vaccines to reach poorer countries after they’re introduced in wealthier countries. Just 20 years ago, this would not have seemed possible.
I’m excited to leave Tanzania after several days of discussion and debate further inspired by what can be achieved when we come together in partnership.
You can follow the GAVI Partners Forum in Dar es Salaam from December 5 to 7 by following @ONEinAfrica and hashtag #GAVIpartners.
Submit your questions on vaccine distribution, financing and more by leaving a comment in the Facebook event.
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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: Children and Youth, GAVI, Health, Immunisation, Vaccines, Vanessa Mdee, Women