The Gavi International Vaccine Alliance announced today that it has supported the routine vaccination of more than one billion children worldwide since it was created in 2000, saving the lives of 17 million of them.

On the occasion of the publication of a new report regarding its activities, Gavi states “that it is on track to achieve the majority of its strategic goals by 2025».

Since its creation, Gavi has contributed to the routine vaccination of more than one billion children, making possible thousands of necessary vaccinations in the context of emergencies or pandemics.

This public-private partnership brings together aid-giving and aid-receiving countries, but also the World Health Organization, Unicef, the World Bank, the vaccine industry and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to Gavi, early data show a recovery in routine vaccination coverage in 2022 in 57 countries receiving the agency’s assistance following a decline between 2020 and 2021 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Vaccination coverage levels thus tend to approach their historical reference level,” according to the agency.

In total Gavi has enabled around 6 billion vaccinations worldwide, protecting children and adults against 19 infectious diseases. And this is because alongside its involvement in the basic vaccination of children, Gavi manages stocks of vaccines against cholera, yellow fever, meningococcal disease and Ebola virus disease.

Gavi has played a critical role in the Covax facility which aims to provide populations in poor countries with Covid vaccines that governments have not had access to. Although its effectiveness was particularly affected by supply difficulties in India and vaccine mistrust in some countries, Covax “delivered nearly two billion doses, preventing 2.7 million deaths in 92 low-income countries,” according to the exhibition.

For the period 2021-2025, the goal is to vaccinate an additional 300 million children and ultimately prevent between seven and eight million deaths.