Doctors Without Borders

MSF at the GAVI Alliance “Partners’ Forum” Vaccination Conference, Tanzania, December 5–7, 2012

MSF is deeply concerned that the current global vaccination strategy is not paying enough attention to reaching the one in five babies born each year that continue to go without the very basic vaccination package. MSF sees the direct effect of the failures in basic vaccination when massive outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases emerge in places where we work. In 2010 in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, MSF vaccinated more than four million people for measles in response to outbreaks that would not be happening if routine immunization were working well. The global number of babies not fully vaccinated rose from 19 million in 2010 to 22.4 million in 2012—there’s an urgent need to address this situation.

The approach being taken in the vaccines blueprint being launched for the next ten years—the “Global Vaccine Action Plan” and “Decade of Vaccines”—does not adequately emphasize the need to strengthen basic immunization. Developing vaccines that are better adapted to reach children in remote or unstable locations—vaccines that do not require refrigeration, do not require needles, and that can be given in fewer doses—is not being prioritized enough. Better products are needed to alleviate the growing number of un-immunized children. GAVI should play a role in the development of adapted products, but to date, it has not done so.