Brazil will donate US$ 20 million to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization

On June 13th Brazil will announce, in London, a US$ 20 million
donation to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), an
international initiative launched in 2000 that seeks to guarantee
universal access to vaccination and immunization. The Alliance has
prevented more than 5 million deaths in the past 10 years.

Set in
the context of global action to curb hunger and poverty, authorized by
Law 12.413, the Brazilian donation will be paid in equal installments
over the following 20 years, and used to finance the International
Finance Facility for Immunization (IFFIm), whose attributions are to
vaccinate and immunize low-income populations.

The conference of
donors to GAVI will seek to provide financing immunization in
least-developed countries. The goal is to facilitate access to vaccines,
strengthen health systems and immunization in those countries, and
introduce new immunization technologies in order to help meeting the
“Millennium Goals”, which aims to reduce the under-five mortality rate
by two thirds by 2015.

Partners, donors, co-financiers and vaccine
manufacturers will discuss the need to raise funds of approximately US$
3.7 billion for immunization programs to be implemented by the Alliance
between 2011 and 2015.

Although there has been significant
progress in reducing child mortality, about 2 million children die every
day from diseases which can be prevented by existing vaccines. Most
deaths occur in least developed countries due to diseases like pneumonia
and diarrhea, which cause about 40% of total deaths.