Renewed Commitment to Global Vaccines and Immunizations Will Save Lives

During a time when we all – including the federal government – need to live within our means and find places to cut spending, any investments made by your government need to meet the test of whether it is an effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

Immunizing children from preventable diseases meets that test. As USAID Administrator Raj Shah announced in London on Monday, by making a multi-year commitment to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI), the US is able to get the most from our investment – leveraging a pledge of $450 million over three years more than eight-fold into billions of dollars in commitments from other donors, including the UK, the Gates Foundation, Norway and others.

Together, these commitments will help save the lives of 4 million children over the next five years, by getting more vaccines to more children and by helping to ensure the quantities of vaccines needed to lower the prices for new vaccines such as those that protect against pneumonia and diarrhea, the world’s two most potent childhood killers. All in all, we will be able to immunize more than 250 million children and prevent more than four million premature deaths.

Investments in vaccines are one of the best and most cost-effective life-saving investments for the world’s children, which is why we’ve made tough choices and trade-offs within our current global health portfolio to make this commitment.  As Administrator Shah said: "In this fiscal climate, a multi-year pledge is an extremely difficult commitment to make. But we have made tough reallocations across our portfolio in order to make that commitment because only a multi-year pledge will ensure the highest possible return for every taxpayer dollar.

Not only will our commitment inspire the generosity of other donors, it will help drive economies of scale that lower the cost of vaccines, allowing us to save even more lives. Just last week, GAVI reached an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to cut the cost of the rotavirus vaccine by 67%. That kind of reduction is only possible with the guaranteed demand a multi-year pledge provides."

In the lead up to GAVI’s conference, the White House received thousands of phone calls, emails, and signed petitions calling for continued U.S. support for GAVI.  The ONE Campaign issued a statement of support following our announcement, including praise from Bono who noted the President was “in it to win it.”

The U.S. has played a lead role in GAVI since its inception, and is a world leader in support of every aspect of the vaccines value chain, including research, development, vaccine affordability, delivery systems, and policy coordination.