10 years, 4.5 million children vaccinated

More than 4.5 million children living in areas of Africa and Latin America where access to healthcare is difficult have been vaccinated in the first 10 years of the child vaccination programme that ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation implements in a partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in cooperation with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).

Since 2008, the Alliance has raised more than 25 million euros  donated through a fundraising scheme that is a pioneer in Europe. Through the “Matching Fund” formula, the Alliance multiplies all donations received by four. Under this formula, for each euro donated, ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation adds another euro and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation two more euros, thereby quadrupling efforts to combat child mortality.

“Over the decade since 2008, 4,508,673 children in 10 countries in Africa and Latin America -including Bolivia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Northern Sudan and Tanzania- have received pentavalent and pneumococcal vaccines” explained Jaume Giró, CEO of ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation. And he added, “no child should die, anywhere in the world, from a preventable disease. Furthermore than vaccinating, we are saving lives.”

Antoni Plasència, ISGlobal’s general director affirmed that “vaccines are one of the most cost-effective public health interventions available They not only protect the individual, but also the community and can eliminate diseases at the national or regional level.They also have great potential to contribute to ending child mortality.”

Because of ISGlobal’s long history in the field of maternal and child health, its experience in coordinating the Secretariat for the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration and its participation, together with Gavi, in a study on the impact of the pneumococcal vaccine on Mozambique, the Institute collaborates with the “la Caixa” Banking Foundation as a strategic partner on a childhood vaccination project that was created in 2014 and has been renewed annually ever since.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is a public-private partnership that brings together developing countries and donors, including the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners, among them ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation. Since the alliance was launched in 2000, Gavi has vaccinated 640 million children, preventing an estimated more than 9 million future deaths.