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www.results.org / Global Action
January 2011
Urge Congress to Support Funding for Vaccines for Children
Global health is characterized by extreme inequity, particularly in the health of young children. Basic health services that we take for granted are widely unavailable in the developing world, and medical innovations that are rapidly introduced in wealthy countries may not reach poor countries for decades, if at all. The resulting disparities are striking: of the 8.8 million children who die each year before their fifth birthday, nearly all of them live in poor countries and succumb to preventable or treatable conditions.
The GAVI Alliance has a different vision: a world in which new, state-of-the-art, life-saving vaccines are made available to children who need them regardless of where they're born. Last month provided a glimpse of that possibility when a vaccine to prevent the worst forms of pneumonia was administered for the first time in Nicaragua as part of a national immunization campaign. What is truly remarkable is that in 2010, the pneumococcal vaccine was introduced in Nicaragua in the same year it was first introduced in the United States, providing equal opportunity for life-saving treatment to both high-income and low-income countries.
With the support of donors, GAVI plans to support the rollout of this vaccine to prevent pneumonia, a major killer of kids, in six additional low-income countries in 2011, with the hope of reaching over 40 countries by 2015. But these new opportunities require new resources. The funding provided by the U.S. for vaccines is modest, but makes a tremendous impact in terms of lives saved and goodwill earned.
This year Congress will be debating the fiscal year 2012 (FY12) budget, including the U.S. contribution to the GAVI Alliance. Write to your representatives and senators and ask them to write and speak to the leadership of the Appropriations Committee in support of a $175 million contribution to GAVI for child vaccine funding.
Take Action! Write a Letter to Your Senators and Representatives
1. Introduce yourself as a RESULTS volunteer and a constituent. Acknowledge any actions that your member has already taken to support our work or other actions on poverty and thank him/her. If you have a new member of Congress, let them know you look forward to working with them in their new role.2. Urge your representative/senator to write to and speak with the leadership of the Appropriations Committee, including the chair and ranking member of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee in support funding for the GAVI Alliance. Many members of Congress submit requests to the Appropriations Committees, so ask that these programs be included among their priorities. Funding for GAVI is not an earmark and support for GAVI funding does not violate the House and Senate bans on earmark requests.
3. Sample Letter:
Dear Senator/Representative______:
I am a member of RESULTS and a constituent. Thank you for your support for ______.
We are fortunate to live in a country where most children have access to basic medical services like immunizations. Unfortunately, that is not the case for the 8.1 million kids around the world who die from treatable or preventable diseases before their fifth birthday. Pneumonia and diarrhea are two of the most common causes of death, but there are new prevention vaccines available.The GAVI Alliance — a public-private partnership that includes governments like the U.S., civil society, and the private sector — is leading the way to make these vaccines available. They need our support. I am writing to request that you speak and write to the leadership of the Appropriations Committee, including the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, and ask that they support $175 million in funding for the GAVI Alliance to expand access to live-saving vaccines in the world's poorest countries. With full funding, GAVI can help save 4.1 million lives by 2015. Funding for immunization programs like GAVI is not an earmark and this small part of our federal budget goes a long way and has tremendous impact.
4. Request a reply and include your contact information. If you don’t know the aide that handles foreign aid, call the office and ask. Please e-mail and fax your letter if possible. Call and make sure the aide that handles these issues received your letter. For contact information, go to the RESULTS website: http://capwiz.com/results/dbq/officials/.
GAVI Alliance: Innovating to Save Lives
The GAVI Alliance is a unique public-private partnership dedicated to protecting children from vaccine-preventable diseases. GAVI is a true partnership, with representation on its governing board from developing and donor governments, non-governmental organizations, multilateral health organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, philanthropic foundations, and the private sector.
GAVI is particularly focused on rapidly increasing access to new vaccines as they become available. An important part of GAVI's approach is to shape the vaccine market, both by assuring manufacturers that there will be a reliable demand for vaccines, and by using the market’s size and purchasing volume to help drive down costs. GAVI also has a strict co-financing policy, which requires the developing countries that receive assistance to contribute to the cost of the vaccines from their own budgets. This helps ensure the countries are full partners and helps build long-term political and financial support for the program within the country.
Since its founding in 2000, GAVI has supported the immunization of nearly 300 million children. These efforts are estimated to have prevented five million deaths.
Vaccines: Proven Success and Tremendous Potential
Vaccines are widely regarded as one of the "best buys" in global health. While other critical health interventions may cure or treat illness, vaccines prevent children and adults from getting sick in the first place. By preventing deaths, promoting health, and reducing the burden on stretched health care systems, vaccines are extremely cost effective. Widespread vaccination even benefits individuals who may not be immunized by reducing the overall prevalence of the disease in a community and breaking the chain of transmission, an effect known as "herd immunity."
Vaccines are responsible for some of the most important achievements in public health. For example, after a concerted global vaccination effort, smallpox, which had afflicted human society since the ancient Egyptians, was eradicated in 1979. Polio was a devastating cause of death and disability globally, and is now endemic in just four countries thanks to eradication efforts. Vaccination against measles has produced rapid improvements in children's health, reducing the number of cases from 733,000 in 2000 to 164,000 in 2008. In Africa, there was a 92 percent reduction in measles deaths in the last decade. There are exciting opportunities to further reduce child mortality thanks to two new vaccines which prevent common childhood killers — pneumonia and diarrhea.
Pneumococcal disease is an infection from a bacterium which, though common, can attack young children with deadly results. Every year 800,000 children die from pneumococcal disease, and the vast majority of these deaths (95 percent) occur in Africa and Asia. Most pneumococcal disease deaths (90 percent) are from pneumonia, which occurs when the bacterium infects the lungs and causes fever, coughing, and difficulty breathing. Pneumococcal disease can also cause meningitis by infecting the brain.
Rotavirus is a major cause of a leading childhood killer — diarrhea. Rotavirus kills over 500,000 children when acute diarrhea leads to severe dehydration. While many other causes of diarrhea such as bacteria and parasites can be prevented by improving water and sanitation, rotavirus is so resilient that these efforts are not enough. Children must be vaccinated to protect them from this virulent disease.
New vaccines to combat pneumococcal and rotavirus present an extraordinary opportunity, but the vaccines are not yet widely available to the children in poor countries who need them most. Of the 129 million babies born in 2008, only 7 percent received the pneumococcal vaccine, and only 8 percent received the rotavirus vaccine.
What's at Stake
To seize the unprecedented opportunity presented by these new vaccines, GAVI will need the strong support of donor countries like the U.S. With full funding between now and 2015, GAVI can immunize an additional 240 million children against pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, and other life-threatening conditions. This would save an estimated 4.2 million lives.
In June 2011, donors from around the world will gather in London for a pledging conference to determine their future contributions to GAVI. A U.S. contribution in FY2012 of $175 million would set strong positive tone for that conference, and provide critical support for GAVI's plans to accelerate access to vaccines. Without strong support, the world will miss an opportunity to close the gap in the between wealthy and the poor.