The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization urged donors to allocate funding for new life-saving vaccines against diarrhea and pneumonia in order to meet the Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality.
“Without this funding for immunization, the world will not reach Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds by 2015,” said GAVI Executive Board Chair Mary Robinson.
At a meeting in Geneva June 16-17, the alliance’s board decided to push through with funding applications from 15 developing countries and agreed on a new round of funding.
GAVI will hold a replenishment meeting on October 6 in New York where donors will be invited to pledge financial assistance for GAVI’s immunization programs. The alliance needs USD4.3 billion until 2015 to finance its current initiatives in over 40 countries and introduce new vaccines.