Norway Increases and Prolongs Support for Global Immunization Until 2015 – 6.5 billion kroner (approximately US$1 billion) envisioned through 2015
Norway Joins the International Finance Facility for Immunization (IFFIm)
7 December 2005 - NEW DELHI —The Prime Minister
of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, announced today that starting in 2006 the
Government of Norway will boost its annual support to the GAVI Alliance
(formerly known as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization).
Norway’s 2006 donation to global immunization will now total 500
million kroner (approximately USD$75 million), up 66% in regard to the
2005 contribution. This contribution should be kept at this level until
2015, bringing Norway’s total support for global immunization to 6.5
billion kroner (approximately US$1 billion depending on exchange rates).
Moreover, the Prime Minister of Norway announced that
Norway will be joining the International Finance Facility for
Immunization (IFFIm) to boost efforts to raise additional development
funds via new and innovative financing.
“It is unnecessary and unacceptable that a child dies
every third second, that more than 26,000 children die every day, that
more than 10 million children die every year,” said Prime Minister
Stoltenberg. “One quarter of these children can be saved by vaccines
available today or in the very near future. This is why we invest in
children’s health through the GAVI Alliance. This is possible. This is
affordable. How can we defend not to do it?”
Prime Minister Stoltenberg made his announcement at the
opening of the 3rd GAVI Partners’ Meeting in New Delhi, 7-9 December,
where the world’s foremost experts in public health and vaccines are
meeting to review progress and confront the challenges in immunizing
children in impoverished countries.
“From the beginning Norway has been a leader in its
support of the GAVI Alliance and child immunization,” said Dr. Julian
Lob-Levyt, Executive Secretary of the GAVI Alliance. “We are grateful
for this increased funding as it will strengthen our efforts to deliver
vaccines to the poorest children of the world.”
GAVI has been financed by ten governments to
date—Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as
the European Union, private contributors, and the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation. GAVI resources help strengthen health and
immunization systems, accelerate access to selected vaccines and new
vaccine technologies—especially vaccines that are new or underused—and
improve injection safety.
Norway joins the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden
as a donor to IFFIm. The International Finance Facility for
Immunization, or IFFIm, is a new financing mechanism that will use
pledges of future aid to leverage money from international capital
markets for immediate use. IFFIm financing will accelerate
significantly the availability of new development funding.
GAVI's efforts are critical to achieving the Millennium
Development Goal on child health, which calls for reducing childhood
mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Of the more than 10 million children
who die before reaching their fifth birthday every year, 2.5 million
die from diseases that could be prevented with currently available or
new vaccines. It is projected that more than 1.7 million premature
future deaths will have been prevented through GAVI support by the end
of 2005.
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The GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and
Immunization) was launched in 2000 to increase immunization rates and
reverse widening global disparities in access to vaccines. Governments
in industrialized and developing countries, UNICEF, WHO, the World
Bank, non-governmental organizations, foundations, vaccine
manufacturers, and public health and research institutions work
together as partners in the Alliance, to achieve common immunization
goals, in the recognition that only through a strong and united effort
can much higher levels of support for global immunization be generated.
Funds channeled through GAVI’s financing arm, The GAVI Fund, are used
to help strengthen health and immunization services, accelerate access
to selected vaccines and new vaccine technologies - especially vaccines
that are new or under-used, and improve injection safety. In addition
to substantial funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
The GAVI Fund (formerly The Vaccine Fund) has been financed by 10
governments to date, as well as the European Union and private
contributors.
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