Donors commit vaccine funding to achieve historic milestone in global health

GAVI Alliance poised to immunise more than 250 million children in developing countries by 2015. Major public and private donors achieved a milestone in global health today by committing funding to immunise more than 250 million of the world’s poorest children against life-threatening diseases by 2015 and prevent more than four million premature deaths. Donors committed US$4.3 billion at the first pledging conference held by the GAVI Alliance. This exceeds an initial target of $3.7 billion, enabling GAVI to reach more children faster than planned and to accelerate the introduction of new vaccines. A portion of the pledges are conditional upon GAVI raising additional funds from new donors in the future. These pledges bring GAVI’s total available resources for the period 2011 to 2015 to $7.6 billion. The increased support is timely. GAVI recently reported a record 50 countries applied for vaccine funding during the Alliance’s latest application round – nearly double...