Selected results flowing from IFFIm funding

  • Poor countries helped with their immunisation programmes
    In total in 2007, US$ 204.7 million went to support GAVI’s efforts to radically scale up access to vaccination in the poorest countries. US$ 101.7 million of IFFIm funds went in 2007 to support country applications for new vaccines. In 2007, US$ 14.7 million went to country programmes that support immunisation safety and routine immunisation services.

    In addition, IFFIm funds are helping countries to address as quickly as possible broad health system “bottlenecks” that currently limit their ability to get vaccines to children.

    In 2007, US$ 88.3 million went to GAVI’s health system strengthening programme to support immunisation delivery and coverage. This represents a substantial portion – nearly 20% – of GAVI’s initial funding estimate of US$ 500 million for the HSS programme from 2006 to 2015.
  • The pentavalent vaccine (5 shots in one) supported
    In 2006–2007, US$ 181 million of IFFIm funds were disbursed to purchase or secure supply of the combination pentavalent vaccine. This 5-in-1 vaccine immunises children against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (the traditional DTP vaccine), hepatitis B and Hib. Encouraged by the additional supply and secure funding of this vaccine, the number of countries applying for GAVI support for Hib vaccine has almost doubled since 2006 to 44.

    Because of the long-term stabilising effect of IFFIm, GAVI has been able to make a long-term purchase commitment of pentavalent vaccines, of which by end 2007 US$ 49.6 million had been drawn down.

    The availability of IFFIm funding until 2015 is supporting security of future supplies. This is an incentive to new manufacturers to enter the market in the coming years, a move which is expected to further reduce vaccine price.
  • Tactical investments made in immunisation
    IFFIm funding has benefitted the
    • Measles Initiative
    • Yellow Fever Initiative
    • Global Poliomyelitis Eradication Campaign
    • Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Elimination Campaign    .

    Measles: Measles kills some 245,000 people globally, and of those, most are children under the age of five. The Measles Initiative is a partnership between global health and development agencies to address this major childhood disease. Acting on evidence that early robust action is most effective, US$ 139 million of IFFIm support has gone to the Measles Initiative to strengthen measles campaigns.

    IFFIm’s funding represented about 80% of the total amount of all external funding available to high-burden countries for measles in 2007. This allowed rapid scale-up, providing 194 million children in 32 countries with life-saving measles vaccine.

    The Measles Initiative announced in November 2007 that deaths from measles in Africa had fallen by 91% between 2001 and 2006, achieving the goal to cut measles deaths on the continent by 90%, four years early. These major gains in Africa spurred a global decline in measles deaths, which fell 68% worldwide in the same time frame.

    Measles vaccination campaigns are also contributing to the reduction of child deaths from other causes. They have become a channel for the delivery of other life-saving interventions, such as bed nets to protect against malaria, de-worming medicine, and vitamin A supplements.

    Poliomyelitis: In June 2007, IFFIm funds helped avert a potentially devastating setback to the 20-year effort to consign polio to the history books. US$ 105 million in IFFIm funds were re-programmed from a post-eradication polio vaccine stockpile into intensified polio eradication activities.

    In the second half of 2007, IFFIm funding helped to immunise more than 100 million children under the age of five, some of them multiple times, in 11 polio-affected countries, and has supported surveillance activities and technical assistance in four WHO regions.

    There has been sustained headway globally in curbing transmission of type 1 poliovirus – the most dangerous remaining serotype. There has been a decrease of 84% in cases over 2006.

    A number of key landmarks have also been reached. For example, there has been a reduction in ‘missed’ children in northern Nigeria where the proportion of children never immunised halved in 2007 over 2006, and no reported cases of polio for 12 months in western Uttar Pradesh, India. This has been one of the most entrenched reservoirs of type 1 polio.

    In total, US$ 191.3 million was fast-tracked into pre-existing polio eradication efforts and vaccine stockpiles in 2007.

    Maternal and neonatal tetanus: Maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT) kills the poorest of the poor in the developing world. However, global MNT elimination is possible through vaccination.

    IFFIm provided US$ 50 million for maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination from a total of US$ 62 million approved in 2007. IFFIm funds represented 90% of the resources allocated in 2007 for the campaign’s activities up to 2009. These resources constitute a 60% boost over those raised for the initiative from other sources between 1999 and 2006.

    The effect is a projected doubling, to 26 million, of the number of women targeted with tetanus vaccine in 2007 and early 2008. IFFIm will have enabled each of the 21 high-burden target countries to complete their planned activities for 2007, without exception. This is vital for elimination efforts and has bolstered several otherwise faltering MNT immunisation programmes.

    Yellow fever: Yellow fever is a lethal, highly infectious viral disease, causing devastating epidemics in 33 countries in Africa and 14 countries in the Americas. Through the Yellow Fever Initiative, IFFIm funded US$ 48.3 million for yellow fever activities in 2007 in most countries in west Africa. This included the provision of stockpiles which make vaccine available for outbreaks.

    IFFIm funding has not just provided protection: it has supported the discovery of previously unrecognised populations at risk which can now be protected. The initial plan anticipated the need for 12 million doses of yellow fever vaccine for four countries in 2007. Following a yellow fever risk assessment exercise, that total has been revised upwards to 23 million doses – nearly double.

    IFFIm funds are going to preventive campaigns in the 12 west African countries most at risk. WHO predicts that this work will prevent approximately 687,000 deaths between now and 2050 in these high-risk countries.