Gavi allocates 200 million vaccine doses for children missed during the pandemic

Nearly 200 million additional doses of life-saving vaccines have been allocated to vaccinate about 50 percent of children in Gavi countries, who were missed during the pandemic, said a note from Gavi (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization).

“Nearly 32 million doses have already been shipped to 13 countries as part of the effort so far and another 10 million doses are set to be shipped by the end of this month,” the vaccine alliance said, of its collaborative effort with Unicef and the World Health Organization. The countries included Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal, Somalia, Syria and Tanzania.

“Of the 35 lower-income countries targeted by the initiative, many are already conducting catch-up activities,“ Gavi added.

‘Zero dose’

The supply announcement comes on the heels of recent global immunisation coverage data (WUENIC) from the WHO and Unicef that pointed to an increase in the number of zero-dose children in Gavi implementing countries, and called for efforts to reach under-immunised children. This report had put India in the list of the top 20 “zero-dose” countries, second to Nigeria. This was countered by India’s Ministry of Health, in a statement on Thursday — saying that the report painted an “incomplete picture” of the country’s immunisation efforts, “as they do not factor in the population base and immunisation coverage of the countries compared.” The Ministry said, as a percentage of total population, “Zero Dose children account for 0.11 percent of the country’s total population.”

“India provides maximum number of WHO recommended vaccines under the UIP (Universal Immunisation Programme) in comparison to most of the other countries. The mean coverage for India is 83.4 percent, which is more than 10 percentage point of the global coverage,” it said.

Funding “Catch Up”

Meanwhile Gavi said, a targeted funding of $290 million to support the “Big Catch Up” initiative (launched by members in April 2023) was approved by Gavi’s board in December 2023. Gavi is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate children across the world.

“Lower-income countries made unprecedented efforts to vaccinate their populations during the Covid-19 pandemic, but this emergency response strained their health systems. Now, our priority is twofold: help countries regain lost ground in routine immunisation coverage and build more resilient and equitable vaccination programmes for the future,” said Thabani Maphosa, Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery at Gavi, in a statement.