GAVI

GAVI, officially Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance[1] (previously the GAVI Alliance, and before that the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization)[2] is a public–private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.[3]

GAVI
2014 logo, evoking UN logos
Founded2000 (2000)
TypePublic–Private Partnership
Legal statusActive
FocusVaccines against: human diseases
Location
Key people
Seth Berkley, Dagfinn Høybråten, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Anuradha Gupta
Websitewww.gavi.org

GAVI brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization,[4] UNICEF,[5] the World Bank,[6] the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation[7] and other private philanthropists. GAVI has observer status at the World Health Assembly.

GAVI has been praised for being innovative, effective, and less bureaucratic than multilateral government institutions like the WHO. GAVI programmes can often produce quantified, politically-appealing, easy-to-explain results within an election cycle, which is appealing to parties locked in an election cycle.[8] GAVI has been criticized for giving private donors more unilateral power to decide on global health goals,[8] prioritizing new, expensive vaccines while putting less money and effort into expanding coverage of old, cheap ones,[9] harming local healthcare systems,[8] spending too much on subsidies to large, profitable pharmaceutical companies[10] without reducing the prices of some vaccines, and its conflicts of interest in having vaccine manufacturers on its governance board.[11] GAVI has taken steps to address some of these concerns.[8]

GAVI's approach to public health has been described as business-oriented and technology-focused, using market-oriented measures, and seeking quantifiable results. This model, termed the "Gates approach" or US-type approach, GAVI is taken to exemplify.[12][8] It contrasts with the approach typified by the Alma Ata Declaration, which focusses on the effects of political, social, and cultural systems on health.[8]

Sponsors

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $1.56 billion to the alliance's 2016-2020 strategic period, as of March 2019.[13]

Industrialised countries are Gavi's principal donors, providing approximately three-quarters of our total funding. Five industrialised country governments are represented on the Gavi Board, usually by officials from development agencies or ministries of finance.[14]

Norway and Britain are also major donors.

On 12 May 2020 while the Parliament was hobbled in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Canada, through its Minister of International Development Karina Gould, announced that it would cut a $600 million cheque to GAVI.[15]

History and programs
Bill Gates, speaking at the UK-hosted GAVI pledging event in June 2011

GAVI was created in 2000 as a successor to the Children's Vaccine Initiative, which had been launched in 1990.[16]

Leadership and positioning

Julian Lob-Levitt was GAVI's CEO between 2004 and 2010. He was rumoured to have left over conflicts around his support for health system strengthening.[8] Seth Berkley has been the CEO of GAVI since 2011, as of 2020.[17]

In August 2014, GAVI changed its name from "GAVI Alliance" and rebranded itself with a new logo deliberately reminiscent of UN organization logos, but using green as a mark of difference.[1]

Public-sector workers and academics public health have criticized GAVI, and other global health initiatives (GHIs) with private-sector actors, saying that they have neither the democratic legitimacy nor the capacity to decide on public health agendas. Private donors often find it easier to exert influence through public-private partnerships like GAVI than through the traditional public sector. There is also criticism that staff at GHIs are often recruited directly from elite educational institutions, and have no experience in health care systems, especially those in poorer countries. Some WHO officials have privately criticized GAVI for infringing and weakening the WHO's mandate.[8]

Health systems strengthening debate
Preparing a measles vaccine supplied by GAVI at Mecha health centre, in northern Ethiopia.

In the 20-naughts, GAVI had intense internal debate about its role in vaccinations and in health systems strengthening (HSS). This was part of a broader discussion in healthcare about "vertical" approaches (often targeting specific diseases or behaviours) and "horizontal" ones, targeting broad programs such as primary care. At GAVI, some argued that vaccination could not be effectively carried out and sustained without strengthening healthcare, citing experiences in GAVI's vaccination programmes, where availability of staff, training, transport, and funds had hindered vaccination and reporting of vaccination coverage and stocks. There were also worries that GAVI was undermining and paralyzing health care systems. Others argued that HSS was a distraction from GAVI's single-minded focus on vaccines, and HSS was a nebulous concept that could not be defined and quantified.[8]

Major donors Norway and Britain supported HSS; USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (and Bill Gates personally) opposed it. The majority of vaccine experts tended to favour technological rather than HSS-based approaches. Pharmaceutical industry representatives were supportive of HSS, possibly because they saw it as key to sustainable markets for their products. In 2005, a narrow vote brought GAVI to endorse an HSS goal. Up to a quarter of GAVI's funding was dedicated to "strengthening the capacity of integrated health systems to deliver immunisation",[8] in practice it's been around 10%.[12] After 2010, this funding went through a joint-venture Health Systems Funding Platform. GAVI's funding for this platform was conditional on the platform meeting vaccine coverage goals.[8]

As of the mid-2010s, few in GAVI were working on HSS, most of the former pro-HSS people had left, and some at GAVI dismissed HSS as PR to gain support from pro-HSS donors and counter criticisms that GAVI was harming healthcare systems. Such criticisms were generally not a topic that GAVI engaged with internally; the lack of internal engagement with the issue has been criticized. The disagreements were fairly intense; when Bill Gates came to visit GAVI headquarters, employees would hide the HSS-related posters so that he would not be reminded of this aspect of GAVI's work.[8]

It has been argued that GAVI's HSS spending in the early 2010s went to selective, disease-specific interventions repackaged as HSS.[12] GAVI's HSS support at this time tended to focus on immunisation strengthening support, especially the building of cold chains. GAVI measured HSS using vaccination coverage as the sole indicator. It set the reporting indicators which were required of recipients of its funding; countries were not allowed to use similar indicators they already collected; this has been criticized for conferring a heavy accounting burden and diverting attention from indigenous goals. National government representatives did sit on the board, but had little influence; one European representative described the environment in the mid 2010s as "highly intimidating".[8]

A 2016 funding-allocation analysis of a sample of GAVI grants found that just over half the money went to purchasing drugs, equipment, supplies, and facilities (and 3% on bonuses and incentive pay,[18]). These are short-term funding activities which the WHO does not consider HSS. The proportions were higher in less-developed healthcare systems. There was no spending on operational research, improving use of existing resources, or developing national drug and vaccine policies.[12] In some grants, HSS funds were mostly spent on day-to-day operational costs, with no exit plan for the funding. GAVI subsequently (before 2018) shifted HSS aid to focus more on sustainability and the principles of the Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness.[19]

Vaccine pricing and market shaping

In 2012, the first MSF "The right shot" report criticized GAVI for focussing on funding expensive new vaccines and neglecting to give children cheap old ones. "Twenty percent of the world’s children aren’t even getting the basic vaccines", MSF's vaccine policy adviser said.[9] MSF criticized the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), a WHO global collaboration of which GAVI is listed as a leader, as flawed for failing to help those 20%, which is some 19 million children.[20]

Pentavalent vaccine

In 2011 GAVI added "shape the market for vaccines and other immunisation supplies" to its strategic goals. It spent 15 years (2005-2020) with a program for shaping the pentavalent vaccine market to be more stable and competitive. The vaccine price fell with increased competition, and price discrimination declined. Whether GAVI met quantitative goals will be assessed in 2020.[21]

  • The number of manufacturers making certified pentavalent vaccine increased, making the market more competitive. Graph by GAVI; manufacturers are not named.
  • All pentavalent vaccine prices fell and price discrimination almost vanished. Graph by GAVI; non-UNICEF prices not shown

Pneumococcal vaccine

In 2011, Doctors without borders (MSF) recommended that GAVI change the ways in which it buy vaccines. They criticized the pneumococcal vaccine Advance Market Commitment, which means that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Pfizer get a subsidy as well as a per-unit payment for supplying doses of pneumococcal vaccine, as "corporate welfare that is scandalously expensive to donors and taxpayers"[22] (in return, the companies committed to sell at least 30 million doses annually for ten years[23]). The Advance Market Commitment had transferred far more money to GSK and Pfizer than the GAVI grants had transferred to low-cost suppliers for technology transfer and product development. MSF said that large pharmaceutical multinationals had been found to put very high markups on prices, and internationally certified vaccine could be made for about 40% less cost by smaller companies in India and China, despite patent-related obstacles. The duopoly allowed price discrimination; apart from charging slightly higher prices for GAVI, it charged unaffordable prices (about ten time the GAVI price) for middle-income countries too rich for GAVI aid.[22] MSF also highlighted the success of the adapted vaccines program, which makes vaccines that are easier to deliver in remote areas (no need for a cold chain, looser age restrictions, fewer shots, lower prices, etc.). They recommended that GAVI spend more money on adapted vaccines and on fostering competition, and less subsidizing large pharmaceutical companies.[10]

GAVI responded (on an unspecified date) by agreeing with MSF's goals, but regretting that MSF had discussed the issue in public as well as through its own close ties to GAVI. GAVI said that low prices required large, stable, high-volume deals, and "careful consideration and the support of key constituencies".[24]

In January 2015, MSF also called upon GSK and Pfizer to cut the price of the pneumococcal vaccine to US$5 per child in developing countries, a price they estimated as competitive.[25] On January 27, they responded to Pfizer's commitment to reduce prices by 6% to $10 per child, pointing out that GSK and Pfizer were being paid $21 per child if GAVI subsidies were included, and the change would not greatly increase affordability for countries too rich for GAVI help but too poor to afford the vaccine.[26] They said that, as Pfizer had made $16 billion in profits on pneumococcal vaccine in the last four years, a larger price cut would be affordable.[27] In early 2016, they ran the "A fair shot" campaign to pressure GSK and Pfizer to drop prices.[28] Pfizer said that they were already selling the vaccine at "far below" cost, while GSK said that the price enabled them to "just about" cover their costs, and "To discount it further would threaten our ability to supply it to these countries in the long-term".[29]

Bill Gates responded to MSF, saying "I think there is an organisation that’s wonderful in every other respect, but every time we raise money to save poor children’s lives, they put out a press release that says the price of these things should be zero". He said that criticizing pharmaceutical company pricing deterred them from investing in medicines for the developing world, and said that instead, pharmaceutical companies should be praised for price discrimination: "We get a great price for these things, which is tiered pricing... And that’s how we manage to cut childhood death in half". He also advocated improving cold chains in developing countries.[30]

In August 2019, MSF asked GAVI to stop giving Advance Market Commitment subsidies to GSK and Pfizer, whom they called a duopoly, and instead buy vaccine from a new third manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, which offered the vaccine at 2/3 of the price then offered by the two. As the pneumococcal vaccine made up 40% of GAVI's vaccine purchasing costs, a 33% price drop would save GAVI billions (13% of its total vaccine purchasing costs[31]). Pneumonia kills more than a quarter of children dying before the age of five, almost a million children each year. MSF said that GSK and Pfizer's pricing was exploitative and had left millions of children who could have been protected vulnerable.[32] In December 2019, they reiterated this request, pointing out that the GSK/Pfizer pneumococcal vaccine often costs US$80 in middle-income countries too rich for GAVI support.[33]

In January 2020, MSF repeated the appeal for GAVI to bulk-buy the cheaper pneumococcal vaccine and vaccinate more of the 55 million children who are not vaccinated with it.[34] They also appealed to the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Gates Foundation, and said that GAVI could have done more to lower vaccine prices.[35]

Coronavirus pandemic

CEO Seth Berkley commented that the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic had started off remarkably well. However he cautioned that there was a need for a co-ordination of production at a global level. He advocated that the pandemic needed a global response whereby the best global facilities for separate parts of the processes should then be integrated into a global process. He said he hoped that the G20 countries should work together with a budget of tens of billions of dollars, and that individual countries should be prepared for finished vaccines to be allocated according to greatest need.[36]

Vaccine programs

GAVI supports the following vaccine programs:[37]

Vaccine Disease(s)
Human Papillomavirus vaccine Human Papillomavirus
Polio vaccine Polio
Japanese Encephalitis vaccine Japanese encephalitis
Meningococcal vaccine Neisseria meningitidis (Meningitis A vaccine)
Measles and rubella vaccine Measles / Measles vaccine, Rubella / Rubella vaccine
Pneumococcal vaccine Streptococcus pneumoniae
Typhoid vaccine Typhoid
Cholera vaccine Cholera
Rotavirus vaccine Rotavirus
Yellow fever vaccine Yellow fever
Pentavalent vaccine Diphteria, tetanus, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae / haemophilus influenza vaccine (haemophilus influenza Type B), Hepatitis B
gollark: That seems kind of arbitrary.
gollark: Kind of, maybe, depending how you define it.
gollark: Inasmuch as converting analog input from a microphone into different frequencies through some analog process actually counts as encoding, I guess.
gollark: You have to have *some* encoding step to translate your data into radio signals.
gollark: Or possibly some other SDRs.

References
  1. Ravelo, Jenny Lei (10 November 2014). "The evolution of global health's 'best-kept secret'". Devex. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  2. "GAVI – The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations". WHO. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  3. Boseley, Sarah (17 November 2011). "Green light from Gavi for cervical cancer vaccine". Guardian. Retrieved 29 April 2014.
  4. "GAVI Alliance". WHO. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  5. "Supplies and Logistics – GAVI". UNICEF. 9 April 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  6. "The World Bank's Partnership with the GAVI Alliance". World Bank Group. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  7. "What We Do -VACCINE DELIVERY- Strategy Overview". Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  8. Storeng, Katerini T. (14 September 2014). "The GAVI Alliance and the 'Gates approach' to health system strengthening". Global Public Health. 9 (8): 865–879. doi:10.1080/17441692.2014.940362. PMC 4166931. PMID 25156323.
  9. Paulson, Tom (15 May 2012). "Doctors Without Borders criticizes Gates-backed global vaccine strategy". Humanosphere.
  10. "GAVI money welcome but could it be more wisely spent?". Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International. 14 June 2011.
  11. "Pneumococcal Vaccine is Launched in Africa, But Are Donors Getting a Fair Deal from Companies?". Doctors Without Borders - USA.
  12. Tsai, Feng-Jen; Lee, Howard; Fan, Victoria Y. (2016). "Perspective and investments in health system strengthening of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance: a content analysis of health system strengthening-specific funding". International Health. 8 (4): 246–252. doi:10.1093/inthealth/ihv063. PMC 6281386. PMID 26612851.
  13. "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation". Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  14. "Industrialised country governments". GAVI. Archived from the original on 2020-06-20.
  15. Gilmore, Rachel (12 May 2020). "Feds pump more funds into global effort to increase vaccine access". CTV News.
  16. "Gavi – About". gavi.org. GAVI. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
  17. "BACK TO GAVI SECRETARIAT Dr Seth Berkley". www.gavi.org. GAVI. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  18. Of 22% on Human resources development/Performance management (fig2), 15.8% was spent on bonuses[12]
  19. Mimche, Honoré; Squires, Ellen; Miangotar, Yodé; Mokdad, Ali; El Bcheraoui, Charbel (2018). "Resource Allocation Strategies to Increase the Efficiency and Sustainability of Gavi's Health System Strengthening Grants". The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. 37 (5): 407–412. doi:10.1097/INF.0000000000001848. PMC 5916462. PMID 29278610.
  20. "Global vaccine plan draws criticism". Nature News Blog.
  21. Malhame, Melissa; Baker, Edward; Gandhi, Gian; Jones, Andrew; Kalpaxis, Philipp; Iqbal, Robyn; Momeni, Yalda; Nguyen, Aurelia (18 July 2019). "Shaping markets to benefit global health – A 15-year history and lessons learned from the pentavalent vaccine market". Vaccine: X. 2: 100033. doi:10.1016/j.jvacx.2019.100033. PMC 6668221. PMID 31384748.
  22. "Gavi must stop giving millions in subsidies to Pfizer and GSK for pneumococcal vaccine". Doctors Without Borders - USA. 3 December 2019.
  23. "Pneumococcal Vaccine is Launched in Africa, But Are Donors Getting a Fair Deal from Companies?". Doctors Without Borders - USA.
  24. "GAVI responds to MSF campaign". www.gavi.org.
  25. "Access: MSF calls on GSK and Pfizer to slash pneumo vaccine price to $5 per child for poor countries ahead of donor meeting". Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International. 20 January 2015.
  26. "MSF responds to Pfizer announcement of pneumococcal vaccine price reduction". Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International. 27 January 2015.
  27. Boseley, Sarah (26 January 2015). "Vaccine price cut pledge not enough, critics tell Pfizer". the Guardian.
  28. "A fair shot campaign". A fair shot. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International.
  29. Boseley, Sarah; editor, health (20 January 2015). "Pharmaceutical companies told to slash price of pneumococcal disease vaccine". The Guardian.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  30. Boseley, Sarah (27 January 2015). "Bill Gates dismisses criticism of high prices for vaccines". The Guardian.
  31. one-third of 40% is 13.3333...%
  32. "Gavi should stop awarding special funds to Pfizer and GSK for pneumonia vaccine". MSF. 26 August 2019.
  33. "Gavi must stop giving millions in subsidies to Pfizer and GSK for pneumonia vaccine". Doctors Without Borders - USA. 3 December 2019.
  34. "MSF urges Gavi to work for more children to a get new, more affordable pneumonia vaccine". MSF. 21 January 2020.
  35. "Gavi must work to ensure more children get new, more affordable pneumonia vaccine". Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International. 21 January 2020.
  36. Seth Berkley: interview BBC Radio 4 8:46 am 11 April 2020
  37. "Vaccine support". Retrieved March 12, 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.