Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

The issue

It is a remarkable achievement that more than half of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. The first safe and effective vaccine was approved less than a year after the first genome of the virus was published. 

But there is so much more to do to ensure all of the world is protected. More than three billion people, many in the world’s lowest income countries, remain unvaccinated. 

Predictable and reliable supply of vaccines is essential to make this happen, alongside co-ordinated delivery support and financing to help countries build capacity to get more shots into arms and to provide protection in advance of potential new variants. 

Some of the world’s lowest-income and most fragile countries can struggle to deliver the vaccines they receive through global initiatives without additional delivery support. 

This has worldwide importance – it’s not possible to stop a virus in geographical phases. Vaccinating in some parts of the world while leaving the protection of others until later would leave the virus free to continue to spread and mutate. This can enable dangerous new variants to continue emerging - as has been seen with Omicron.

Without a renewed global push, the world could be facing a seemingly endless cycle of resurgences and new variants, with devastating consequences for health and prosperity. But the constraints in the supply of vaccines are finally beginning to ease – and many NGOs including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, are working with funders such as Croda Foundation to seize this opportunity to turn vaccines into vaccinations in countries that have previously been left behind.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public–private global health partnership set up to increase access to immunisation in disadvantaged countries.

The organisation was created in 2000 as a response to stalling progress of international immunisation programmes. Nearly 30 million children in developing countries were not fully immunised against deadly diseases, and many others went without any immunisation at all.

They facilitate vaccinations in developing countries by working with donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists. 

Since the start of the Covid pandemic, Gavi has been co-leading the COVAX (Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access) initiative. This ground-breaking collaboration has played a key role in ensuring the development and manufacture of Covid vaccines, with fair and equitable access for every country in the world.

On 4 June 2020, at a UK-hosted global vaccine summit, Gavi launched the COVID-19 Vaccines Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC) - an innovative way of donor-financing Covid vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income countries through global risk-sharing and pooled procurement. 

Through the COVAX AMC, Gavi is supporting 92 low and low-middle income countries to scale up their national vaccination programmes by bundling together procurement financing with catalytic investments to strengthen delivery systems. 

Over $10 billion US dollars has been pledged to the Gavi COVAX AMC to establish lasting immunisation programmes across the globe.

Find out more about Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance on their website

The project

Croda Foundation has awarded a grant of £200,000 to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for a project to get more people vaccinated against Covid-19 in 11 of the Foundation's priority regions.

Gavi, working alongside partners, has recognised the need to provide greater support and additional funding to help countries identified as part of the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) countries get shots into arms. Identified countries being supported by this grant are among 20-25 nations that have been identified as facing the greatest challenges for vaccine roll-out, and with the greatest need to help them implement plans to accelerate uptake.

The grant will allow approximately 50,000 vaccines to be delivered, ensuring dose donations can be shipped and administered. The contribution has leveraged match funding, bringing the total investment to £400,000, enabling this Croda Foundation grant to procure, deliver and administer COVID-19 vaccines for approximately 95,000 people

In addition to vaccines, the project is providing additional support for country-wide readiness and delivery, to ensure the most vulnerable can be protected in the short term, regardless of income level.

The project is also supporting Gavi’s efforts to intensify testing, learning and scaling of evidence-based approaches to building vaccine confidence and uptake. This work is being led by the Vaccination Demand Hub, a global collective of partners working together to develop methodologies, evidence and tools to support country demand programming. 

In partnership with UNICEF, eleven nations around the world are being supported to identify and address the reasons for low vaccine uptake, and supported to identify innovative and tailored solutions. This will have a particular focus on improving access for women and high-risk populations. 

Croda expertise and know-how

This project is a first step towards potential future co-development of partnerships utilising Croda’s expertise and know-how to support global vaccine equity.

Impact

Match funding of a further £200,000 from Gavi