The Global Vaccine Initiative is addressing emerging infectious diseases through various campaigns and strategies, each aiming to bolster global health security and prevent future outbreaks. Key initiatives include:
- Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance: Gavi’s mission is to save lives and protect people’s health by increasing the use and equitable access to vaccines. Recently, Gavi appointed Dr. Sania Nishtar as its Chief Executive Officer, underlining its commitment to continue fighting vaccine-preventable diseases globally. Gavi has already helped vaccinate over 1 billion children in 78 lower-income countries, averting more than 17.3 million future deaths. Their strategy for 2021–2025 aims to immunize 300 million children worldwide, preventing 7–8 million deaths. Additionally, Gavi has launched initiatives like INFUSE 2024 in partnership with Seedstars, to foster innovations that enhance climate-resilient health systems and improve immunization delivery.
- The Big Catch-up: Led by WHO, UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with Immunization Agenda 2030, “The Big Catch-up” is a global effort to vaccinate millions of children and restore immunization progress lost during the pandemic. This initiative aims to lift vaccination levels among children to at least pre-pandemic levels and strengthen primary healthcare services for essential immunization.
- Accelerating Vaccine Development for Global Health Impact: WHO’s initiative to prioritize key endemic pathogens through the development of “Vaccine Value Profiles” for pathogens posing significant public health and socio-economic burdens, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This effort involves collaborations with pathogen and vaccine experts to advance the development of vaccines against these critical threats.
- Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP): Developed to realize the vision of the Decade of Vaccines, ensuring all individuals and communities enjoy lives free from vaccine-preventable diseases. GVAP is a collaborative effort among global health stakeholders, including governments, health professionals, academia, manufacturers, and civil society, committed to preventing millions of deaths through more equitable access to existing vaccines.
- Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI): CEPI is spearheading research into next-generation ‘trans-amplifying’ mRNA vaccines and supporting the development of vaccines against diseases with epidemic or pandemic potential. CEPI’s work includes funding projects to evaluate diagnostics for Nipah and Lassa and investigating plant-based vaccine production technologies. Their strategy, CEPI 2.0, aims to prepare the world to respond to the next Disease X threat with a new vaccine in just three months.
These initiatives underscore a comprehensive approach to tackling both current and future infectious disease challenges, emphasizing innovation, collaboration, and equity in vaccine access and distribution.
