EU more than doubles vaccine aid as Gavi launches appeal

The EU has pledged an increase to its annual aid budget for vaccines and immunisation programmes from €10 million to €25 million in the 2014-2020 budgetary period, on the day that the Gavi Alliance launches a funding replenishment appeal. “It is horrible and unacceptable that around 1.5 million children still die each year from diseases which could be prevented by a simple vaccine,” the EU president José Manuel Barroso told a conference in Brussels on 20 May. “We are committed, in the long term, to doing all we can to make sure that more men, women and children have access to life saving vaccines, no matter where they live.” The new revenues will go to Gavi, a public-private partnership formerly known as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations, whose campaigns since 2000 have helped to protect 440 million children, and save six million lives. The chair of the Gavi board, Dagfinn Høybråten,...