From 1980 to 2009, the
world’s population more than doubled, but the number of diphtheria cases
dropped by 99 percent, polio cases dropped by 97 percent, and measles and
pertussis cases both dropped by 95 percent.
Increasing support for vaccines and immunizations on a global scale
brought about this progress. Finding new
ways to deliver vaccines to children in developing countries is the main goal
of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI Alliance), which
brings together governments, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, vaccine
manufacturers, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and
private corporations, who all have a common goal: saving lives and improving
health by expanding immunization in developing countries. The GAVI has founded three programs; the GAVI
Matching Fund, International Finance Facility for Immunizations (IFFIm) fund,
and the Advance Market Commitment (AMC), all of which are designed to bring
public- private partnerships together to find innovative ways to provide cheaper
vaccines world wide. The GAVI Matching
Fund has been designed to raise $260 million by the year 2015 to provide
vaccines. This fund matches the
donations contributed to it, for example; the Anglo American, ARK Foundation,
J.P. Morgan and the “la Caixa” Foundation (the philanthropic arm of the large
Spanish bank) in all, have pledged more than $14 million toward immunization
programs, which means that this matching mechanism already has led to $28
million in funding for GAVI. The IFFIm
fund created by GAVI was created in 2006, and it was the first aid-financing entity in history to
attract legally binding commitments of up to 20 years. It has attracted nine governments to make
long term payment pledges to create and sell “vaccine bonds” in a capitalist
market. The World Bank is IFFIm’s
treasury and the program has been a success.
The last program is the AMC, which is designed to provide vaccines for
pneumococcal disease, which is the leading killer of children under the age of
five in developing countries. The AMC
has brought together donors, the World Bank, UNICEF, WHO, and the vaccine
industry to provide vaccines for pneumococcal at reduced prices in order for
developing countries to be able to afford them.
By
bringing together private funds and government involvement, GAVI has created
three efficient ways to provide large amounts of vaccines to developing countries
that otherwise would not be able to attain sufficient accesses to them. By
raising awareness about how immunization can be made cheap and affordable many
lives can be saved and a healthy population can flourish. The encouragement of financial support for
vaccines in these troubled economic times is crucial in order to continue the
progress of eradicating diseases such as pneumococcal, AIDS, and Malaria. These vaccines should be made affordable to
developing countries because they are the ones who need it most. A developing country cannot modernize if its
citizens are constantly plagued by disease.
Every human being has the right to live, so they should have an equal
right to health care no matter what their economic state is. The GAVI’s programs show how on a global
scale health care can become available to those who could not otherwise have
accesses to it. Public- privatization partnerships
cooperating together to provide more health care seems to be the best way of
tackling the issue of inequality in the healthcare system between the rich and
poor, on a global scale. Developing
countries having to wait ten or more years to get vaccines that have already
come out in wealthy nations is not acceptable.
These vaccines should be available to everyone at the same time. By distributing affordable vaccinations
evenly worldwide diseases can be greatly decreased. With a decrease in disease the massive amount
of time, manpower, and money spent now can eventually be distributed else where
for humanity to prosper. On the other
hand this goal is much easier said then done.
Global cooperation can be hard to achieve due to differing opinions,
lack of resources, and lack of skills.
With organizations like GAVI much progress has been made, but there is
still a long way to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment