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'Appel de Lyon' to the G8 countries
Immunisation initiative: Nelson Mandela calls for participation
April 8 was a good day for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI). The initiative, founded in 1999 and based in Lyons, in Southeast France, used the occasion of a dinner hosted by the city mayor as part of a conference on biosciences to call on the G8 countries for greater efforts in the immunisation sector – with success. The French government pledged € 15 million in support of its work.
"Every child has the right to a healthy start in life, no-one should be denied immunisation," was how GAVI President Nelson Mandela summed up the initiative's goal. According to the World Health Organisation, 10,000 people per day in the developing countries die from diseases such as measles, diphtheria and tetanus. Infections, against which favourably-priced and effective vaccines are available, cause every year almost as many deaths as AIDS. The GAVI, a public-private partnership founded jointly by the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and foundations, research centres and vaccine producers, works on implementation of a € 2 billion assistance plan. By 2005, at least 80 per cent of all children worldwide are to be protected from the most common infectious diseases.
Via its fundraising subsidiary, Vaccine Fund, which was launched in 1999 with a US$ 750 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the GAVI has so far mobilised € 1.2 billion. Programmes in 64 countries worth a total of about € 900 million have been launched. "We invest 40 per cent of the funds in infrastructure and training of local personnel," said Vice-President Joris Vandeputte. To mobilise the € 800 million still needed to implement the strategy, Mandela addressed the 'Appel de Lyon' to all industrialised nations that do not yet support the GAVI. "You should act now," said the former President of South Africa, with an eye on the G8 summit at the beginning of June in Evian, France. Solidarity in the sector of medicine and health will be one of the summit's four main topics.
However, whether Germany, which to date has made no money available, will meet this request is doubtful. The German Development Ministry (BMZ) thinks the GAVI is certainly a good initiative, but says it cannot be integrated in its current priority area strategy. Ulrich Heinrich, a Free Democrat Opposition MP and the rapporteur on world health issues on the German Bundestag Committee for Economic Cooperation and Development, calls on the (Social Democrat-Greens) government nevertheless to support the Vaccine Fund with an "appreciable" contribution which should not come purely from Federal funds. France and Germany should speak up, he adds, for having part of the European Development Fund, whose reserves have been building up for years, being reshuffled in favour of the GAVI.
Nils aus dem Moore
Netressourcen More information on the Internet: www.vaccinefund.org
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