Is a ‘polyepidemic’ humanity’s next big threat? Childhood vaccine crusader shares concerns for future

By the start of 2011, the year epidemiologist Seth Berkley became CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the ambitious nonprofit had over its 11-year history supported the immunization of 288 million children in poor countries. But it also had a $3.7 billion funding gap between its plans and donor financial pledges. Making matters worse, an internal battle raged about how much it should invest in strengthening health systems versus more technological solutions, such as new or improved vaccines, favored by its main funder, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “It was a crisis,” Berkley says. Berkley plans to step down from Gavi’s helm on 2 August, arguably leaving it in a much better place. Between 2011 and 2022, it raised $33.3 billion in financing from governments, philanthropies, and industry—a jump of 683% from its first decade. To date, Gavi has helped low- and middle-income countries vaccinate 1 billion children against a widening range of diseases. Tensions have eased between the organization and the Gates foundation, which has donated another $3.5 billion to Gavi under Berkley’s watch. Berkley and Gavi also played a central role in the COVID-19 pandemic, helping create and run the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility. Although the new nonprofit fell short of its goal of getting COVID-19 vaccines to lower and middle-income countries at the same time as they were rolled out to wealthy countries, it still ended up providing nearly 2 billi...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news