Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced today the appointment of Dr Sania Nishtar as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Dr Nishtar, currently serving as a Senator in her home country of Pakistan, will assume the role on 18 March 2024.

Training and Career

A trained medical doctor, Dr Sania Nishtar has built an outstanding career over 30 years as a global public health leader.

In national government, she served between 2018 and 2022 as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, a role with the status of a Federal Minister.

In 2013, during Pakistan’s Caretaker Government, she served as a Federal Minister with responsibility for re-establishing the country’s Ministry of Health among other roles, winning acclaim for transparency and accountability during her time in office.

During her career, Dr Nishtar has fulfilled several leadership positions in civil society and international organisations. She founded the non-profit NGO think tank Heartfile, which campaigns for health reform in Pakistan.

She was the inaugural Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Accountability Panel (IAP) for women’s and children’s health and Co-Chair of the WHO Independent High-level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases, among many other roles.

Dr Nishtar served as Chair of Gavi’s Evaluation Advisory Committee from 2011 to 2014, and in 2016 served as an independent member of Gavi’s Board.

A prolific thought leader, she has co-authored dozens of academic papers and books, and has been published in many leading national and international newspapers. Dr Nishtar graduated from medical school as the best graduate in 1986.

She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and received a PhD from King’s College London, which awarded her an honorary Doctorate in Science, Honoris Causa, in 2019.

She is listed among the notable alumni of King’s College and in 2020 was among the BBC’s 100 Women, a list of inspiring and influential women from around the world.

Comments

Professor José Manuel Barroso, Chair of the Gavi Board, said:

“Over three decades of leadership at the national and global levels, Dr Nishtar has built a reputation as a tireless advocate for health equity, an innovative thinker and a proven doer when it comes to solving complex challenges. I am impressed by her accomplishments and excited by the possibilities her appointment brings for our Alliance and our ambitions to protect future generations. I also thank David Marlow for his effective leadership as Gavi’s CEO ad interim. His unfailing commitment to keep Gavi moving forward, by leading important structural and cultural reforms, has ensured Gavi is in the best possible shape to meet its current and future goals.”

Commenting on her appointment, Dr Sania Nishtar said:

“Health starts with life-saving vaccines. Over the past 23 years, Gavi has been one of the most impactful organisations in global health. The task ahead is enormous – from health impacts of climate change, to the need to tackle vaccine inequity, prepare for future outbreaks and boost routine immunisation, which I believe is the gateway to achieving Universal Health Coverage. I am honoured by the trust the Gavi Board has placed in me and look forward to working with Gavi’s talented staff and skilled Alliance partners to ensure Gavi reaches hundreds of millions of children in lower-income countries with life-saving vaccines against deadly and debilitating diseases.”

David Marlow, Gavi’s CEO ad interim, commented on Dr Nishtar’s appointment:

“I have been honoured to lead Gavi with the senior leadership team during this interim period and congratulate the Board on attracting and securing Dr Sania Nishtar as our next CEO. Together with the Gavi team, I am very much looking forward to working closely with Dr Nishtar and our Alliance partners as we strive to meet our ambitious goals.”

Dr Nishtar’s appointment comes at an important time for Gavi. With its fifth five-year strategic period drawing to a close at the end of 2025, Gavi will seek Board approval during 2024 for its 2026–2030 strategy.

Alongside future strategy, fundraising will be a priority for Dr Nishtar, with plans already in place for a high-level event to launch Gavi’s investment opportunity, to be co-hosted by France and Africa CDC in June.

The post PROFILE – Meet Dr Sania Nishtar, new CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has helped to vaccinate over one billion children with routine vaccines since it was established in 2000 – alongside enabling billions of critical vaccinations during campaigns, emergencies and pandemics – and is on course to achieve a majority of its 2025 strategic objectives.

In total, Gavi has enabled roughly 6 billion vaccinations around the world, protecting children and adults against 19 infectious diseases.

These new figures were unveiled at the Global Vaccine Impact Conference, co-hosted by the Spanish Government, which kicked off in Madrid today and saw the publication of a new report, Raising Generation ImmUnity.

Every year, Gavi provides vaccines to countries to protect half the world’s children and despite the huge strain placed on countries’ health systems by the COVID-19 pandemic, the report finds that it remains on or ahead of schedule in eight of 11 key ambitious commitments it made for the period 2021-2025 (Progress covering two of the five years of the 2021-2025 period).

These include efforts to immunise a further 300 million children, prevent between seven and eight million future deaths and unlock US$80-US$100 billion in economic benefits

Commitments where Gavi’s ambitious goals require additional effort during the current five-year period are in securing further cost savings from manufacturers, increasing countries’ own financial contribution and in helping countries transition away from Gavi support.

These encouraging signs that resilient health systems in the 57 Gavi-implementing countries are having some success in bouncing back following the pandemic appear to be borne out by preliminary data demonstrating a recovery of routine immunisation coverage in 2022.

Based on a preliminary analysis of country administrative data shared with Gavi, coverage across Gavi-implementing countries increased by approximately three percentage points in 2022.

This contrasts with a 5% point drop between 2020 and 2021 and will help coverage levels return closer to their historical baseline. Gavi’s goal is to continue that catch-up while also reaching the millions of “zero dose” children still missing out on life-saving vaccinations. 

Commenting these figures, Prof José Manuel Barroso, Gavi Board Chair, said: “For over twenty years, Gavi’s operating model has been a solution to the world’s immunisation challenges and at no time was this more the case than in recent years, when it has helped countries not only to weather the worst public health crisis in a century, but protect more and more people from deadly, preventable diseases.”

In addition to its work on essential childhood vaccines, Gavi manages stockpiles of vaccines against Cholera, Yellow Fever, meningococcal disease and Ebola, giving it a crucial role in outbreak response. Gavi also co-leads COVAX, the global initiative for COVID-19 vaccine equity, alongside the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

COVAX has shipped almost 2 billion doses of vaccines – and as the primary source of COVID-19 vaccines for lower-income economies, prevented 2.7 million deaths across 92 lower-income countries. This role in health crisis response gives Gavi vital insights into future efforts on pandemic prevention and preparedness.

COVID-19 proved beyond a doubt the value of immunisation. We built our response on top of a tried-and-tested immunisation system. With Gavi support, we can strengthen this platform to ensure our health system can withstand future outbreaks”,

– said H.E. Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Minister of Health of Indonesia. 

“In my country, where climate-change and displacement are making it harder, not easier, to deliver health services – vaccines are an essential way to manage outbreaks and save lives,” said Dr Abdelmadjid Abderahim, Minister of Public Health and Prevention, Chad.

It is an evolutionary certainty that outbreaks of infectious diseases will only increase due to climate change and population growth. That is why, in addition to protecting a whole generation of young people against preventable diseases, our Alliance has delivered billions more doses of vaccines to help countries fight outbreaks and pandemics. Despite the increasing complexity of the world in which we operate, Gavi is having more impact than ever before, responding to a growing list of global health challenges,”

– said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi.

“Millions of children missed out on essential vaccines in the last three years. Catching up these children is a priority this year, as we rebuild our health systems post-pandemic. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, are a critical part of the push to catch up, recover and strengthen immunization systems so each child can thrive,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Reaching 1 billion children with lifesaving vaccines is an impressive milestone and a testament to what we can achieve for children when we work together. Yet the job is far from done. As health systems and the immunization services they provide continue to recover from the impact of the pandemic, it’s critical that we continue our joint efforts to ensure that children, everywhere, have access to routine childhood vaccinations. It offers children the best shot at living healthy and happy lives,” said Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF.

The post Vaccine Alliance Reaches Immunization of More Than One billion Children appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

WHO declares a PHEIC when an emergency is “serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected”, with implications for health beyond the affected state’s national borders – and the status helps trigger a set of measures and legally binding obligations that facilitate a coordinated international response. Lack of PHEIC status does not mean COVID-19 is no longer a pandemic: the DG noted that this news does not mean COVID-19 is “over as a global health threat.”

Several PHEICs have not been related to pandemics, and several sustained epidemics or “pandemics” have not been assigned PHEIC status. Read more about these nuances here. 

The Emergency Committee has met every three months since the PHEIC was declared in early 2020.

The lifting of official PHEIC status is a sign of the progress made in the past year, getting most countries to a solid baseline of coverage, including with support from COVAX which has focused efforts on lower-income countries.

Global coverage with a primary series (two doses) of COVID-19 vaccine stands at 64% on average, and at 55% on average in the 92 lowest-income countries (compared to 28% at the beginning of 2022).

On average, the majority of health care workers and older adults across the world – among those at greatest risk – are protected with two doses, and are starting to receive boosters. The countries furthest behind have made remarkable progress.  

Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which co-leads COVAX – the global initiative for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines – comments on what today’s decision means for the continued fight against COVID-19 and other deadly infectious diseases:  

After more than three years of this pandemic, the world is ready to move to the next phase. But while today marks a historic milestone, we must also be clear about the need to continue to protect our most vulnerable people, as we do for other deadly but preventable diseases. Around three out of ten older adults in lower-income countries have not yet received two doses, and we know they are among those most likely to become severely ill or die from COVID-19. 

During the pandemic, countries delivered more vaccines than ever before in history. With multiple outbreaks, millions of children missing out on routine vaccinations, and the certainty of future pandemics, the urgent question is – how can we best apply what we have learned to reach more people with lifesaving vaccines than ever before?”  

COVAX has delivered nearly 2 billion doses to 146 countries, and dedicated more than US$ 1.6bn to help countries turn vaccines into vaccinations, and strengthen health systems.

For the past year, Gavi and partners have been working to help countries plan for this moment, and ensure an unprecedented global emergency response effort can smoothly transition to a tailored, country-specific effort to deliver COVID-19 vaccines alongside other vital routine services.

With a strong foundation of coverage around the world, a plan to integrate COVID-19 vaccine delivery into routine vaccination programs, developed in consultation with countries and partners, will be discussed at the upcoming Gavi Board meeting in June 2023.

Most recently, the African Union, Africa CDC, Gavi, WHO, UNICEF, countries and other partners convened a “global stocktake” in Addis Ababa to share thoughts on how best to take this work forward. 

The post COVID-19 No Longer a Global Concern as WHO Lifts “PHEIC” Status appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) has launched the Zero-Dose Learning Hub (ZDLH), a new mechanism to improve how data and evidence are leveraged to successfully identify and reach the millions of children who have not yet received a single routine vaccine shot – “zero-dose” children – and the missed communities in which they live.

The goal of the ZDLH collaboration is to supplement existing and ongoing monitoring efforts by building deeper understanding and sharing learning on the complex array of factors that impact efforts to reach zero-dose children, particularly in lower-income Gavi implementing countries.

Funded and coordinated by Gavi, ZDLH is composed of Country Learning Hubs in Bangladesh, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda, as well as a global hub led by JSI Research and Training Institute, Inc. (JSI), with support from the Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) and The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF).

The global hub will provide technical and operational support to countries; and disseminate learning across immunisation stakeholders at the community, national, regional and global levels.

“Zero-dose children face significant and complex systemic barriers that impact their ability to access basic services, including immunisation,” said Thabani Maphosa, Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery at Gavi. “Since the inception of our Alliance, Gavi has taken a data-driven approach to address immunisation challenges. This new investment will help inform and improve immunisation programmes to reach the most vulnerable children in urban slums, rural and hard-to-reach areas, and fragile and conflict settings – using tailored approaches and addressing gender-related barriers. Today’s new partnership is another important step in our mission to ensure no child misses out on life-saving vaccines, no matter where they live.

While incredible progress has been made in immunisation coverage, particularly in lower-income countries in the last few decades, it is clear that a percentage of children consistently miss out, with the pandemic hampering progress.

The number of zero-dose children in Gavi implementing countries reduced by 14% from 2015 to 2019.

However, this number increased during the pandemic; and in 2021, there were 12.5 million zero-dose children in the 57 lower-income countries supported by Gavi.

As a result, during the 2021–2025 strategic period, Gavi and Alliance partners are focused on reaching zero-dose children and missed communities, aiming to leverage the power of innovation and new partnerships to reduce the number of zero-dose children in Gavi-eligible countries by 25% by 2025.

Today’s ZLDH launch represents the latest initiative in this effort, alongside Gavi’s Zero-Dose Immunization Programme (ZIP), an innovative initiative that is providing two consortia of partners with up to US$ 100 million to identify and reach zero-dose children living in displaced communities and fragile and conflict settings.

“JSI is uniquely positioned to lead the ZDLH and address the complex socio-cultural, political, geographic and economic root causes of under-immunisation. Our team will draw on years of successful implementation of innovative and finely tailored approaches to immunisation equity,” said Kate Onyejekwe, Director of JSI’s International Division. “We have convened a dynamic roster of partners to implement the ZDLH’s charge.”

The post Gavi Launches Initiative to Address Barriers to Immunization Equity appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.