Following Gavi’s replenishment summit, MSF calls for vaccine access for children in humanitarian settings
MSF urges that funding shortfall shouldn’t deter Gavi and donors from ensuring stronger efforts to reach children in humanitarian settings with immunization.
Background
Following Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s replenishment pledging summit on June 25, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urges Gavi, its board members and donors to now focus their efforts to reach children in humanitarian settings with lifesaving vaccination.
Gavi – which was set up 25 years ago to increase access to vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries – did not reach its funding target of $16.2 billion and faces a shortfall. With a few donors yet to pledge, there are still opportunities to address this gap.
With over 50 years of experience vaccinating children who live in some of the world’s hardest-to-reach and most neglected settings, MSF is keenly aware of the barriers and challenges that make access to and the delivery of vaccines in humanitarian settings particularly complex and expensive.
“We are encouraged to see global solidarity in support of Gavi’s next five years of work, but it comes with a funding shortfall,” says Daniela Garone, physician and MSF International medical coordinator. “This should not deter Gavi and donors from stepping up and ensuring stronger efforts to reach children in humanitarian settings with immunization.
We see first-hand the devastating impact of low immunization coverage on communities and health systems. Many of the places where we work have faced outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases – like measles in Darfur, Sudan and diphtheria in Kano, Nigeria – due, in part, to limited vaccine access. With more than half of unvaccinated children living in humanitarian settings around the world, including war zones, refugee camps and remote areas cut off from healthcare, it should be clear that now is the time to bolster access to vaccines.
Ensuring that children actually get vaccinated needs sufficient funding, political will and commitment from donors and governments. That’s why we again call on Gavi, its board members and donors to improve access to vaccines for children living in humanitarian settings, including by ensuring that all children until at least age five have sustainable access to vaccines.”
Our work with Gavi
MSF does not accept Gavi funding. However, MSF often works in close collaboration with countries’ Ministries of Health, with more than half of the vaccines MSF uses in our projects coming from Ministries of Health and procured through Gavi.
