Norway’s first contribution to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) was released in 2000, with the amount donated until now being $90 million a year.

Goal – save nine million children
Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg announced funds would now increase to $180 million annually from now until 2015.

“This is an important contribution to save nine million children from dying of the most common diseases”, he said in London on 13 June.

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates donated an extra US$ 1bn. Mr. Gates said vaccines are “the greatest thing that has ever happened in human health. Vaccines are “very inexpensive” and can “protect you for your entire life”.

Norway, together with Britain and the Bill Gates Foundation, has declared that GAVI will raise more than $3.7 billion by 2015 in an effort to fight against child mortality.

“The fact that Norway is increasing its contribution to GAVI makes it possible to immunize more children and save even more lives”, explains nurse from Norway Dina Hovland, who has worked with several vaccine campaigns for Doctors Without Borders.

Poor countries need lower vaccination rates
Current figures suggest four out of five children are vaccinated. Child mortality has fallen by a third in the last two decades, from 12 million deaths in 1990 to 8 million in 2009.

A number of developing countries currently purchase cheap vaccines through GAVI. But for many countries it is to pay for vaccines, the prices down.

The Prime Minister’s office says vaccine manufacturers have already announced significant reductions in their rates for the poorest countries.

“Every child who dies is one too many. The most brutal expression of women’s oppression is that several hundred thousand women die during pregnancy and childbirth”, Prime Minister Stoltenberg said at the GAVI meeting.

“High vaccination rates are still a major problem. Stoltenberg should require GAVI to put more efforts to lower vaccination rates”, says Hovland.

Norway among donor leaders
According to the GAVI Alliance statistic numbers, the main donors with total contributions and commitments for 2000-2019 period are:

United Kingdom                         3,826 (in US$ millions)
France                                      1,738
Italy                                          1,236
Norway                                     838
United States of America             647
Canada                                     403

The number of donors is 17 countries and European Commission. The total amount of contributions and commitments for 2000-2019 years is 10,17 US$ billions. Additional 1,66 US$ billion for the same period is donated by private donors.

Background
GAVI is a global health partnership between the private and public sectors, committed to the mission of saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.

GAVI was launched in 2000 at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The GAVI Alliance includes among its partners developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, NGOs, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In a decade GAVI support has enabled 250 million children to be vaccinated and has averted 5 million early deaths. GAVI’s efforts are critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goal on child health, which calls for reducing childhood mortality by two-thirds by 2015.

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