Gavi To Support India's Immunisation Programme

Gavi, a global vaccine alliance, has announced a partnership with the Union government to accelerate access to modern, highly-efficacious vaccines to support India's immunisation programme, it was announced on Thursday (07 January).

Under the partnership, Gavi will provide up to $500 million between 2016 and 2021.

Beyond 2017, India is expected to begin transitioning away from Gavi support and should begin fully self-funding all its vaccine programmes by 2012. The new partnership will accelerate the introduction of modern, highly efficacious vaccines in the country, protecting children against the leading causes of disease, including pneumonia and severe diarrhoea, which combined claim the lives of more than 200,000 Indian children under the age of five every year.

“One-sixth of humanity resides in India, equivalent to 30 or 40 other poor countries. Therefore, preventing disease in India will have a truly global impact,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He went on to say that Indian innovation can make a difference not only in India but across the globe.

Despite Indian immunisation programmes’ success in eliminating polio and neonatal tetanus, the country is home to 4 million under-immunised children. According to Gavi, this around a fifth of the total of all of the countries that they support.

The vaccine alliance says that along with its partners it will provide targeted support to help India’s immunisation system identify and reach children who are not receiving vaccines, including exploring how India’s vast number of polio workers can support the uptake of other routine vaccines, such as the 5-in1 pentavalent vaccine and other new vaccines.

“Together with WHO and UNICEF, Gavi’s support will help India to turbo-charge its immunisation programmes, protecting more children more quickly,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi.

Gavi is a public-private partnership which brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners to help increase access to immunisation in poorer countries.

The partnership in India will also make available the measles-rubella combined vaccine to combat the 30,000 measles-related deaths among children in the country which occur each year. The vaccine alliance also plans to provide future assistance to introduce the human papillomavirus vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, once approved by the government.

Currently, 60 per cent of all Gavi-procured vaccines are manufactured in India. Through the partnership, Gavi and the Government of India will work more closely together to help create a more sustainable global and domestic vaccine manufacturing base within India.