About the
Vaccine Fund The Vaccine Fund is a financial
mechanism developed by GAVI to raise new resources for immunization and swiftly
channel them to health systems in the worlds poorest
countries. Since the partners of the Alliance provide direction and support,
administrative costs are kept low approximately 98% of Global Fund resources
go directly to countries. The Vaccine Fund was
created with a generous initial grant of $750 million from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation. Since that time, the governments of Norway, the United Kingdom,
the United States and the Netherlands have all come on board to support the Vaccine
Fund, pushing its total resources to above $1 billion for 2001-2005. More countries
are expected to contribute to the Vaccine Fund in the next few months and contributions
from corporations and foundations will also be pursued. Vaccine
Fund support to countries currently takes two forms:
(1) provision of new and under-used vaccines, with corresponding safe immunization
equipment, and (2) funding to help governments
strengthen their basic immunization services. |