Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

(asked on 30th October 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if the Government will ensure that its support for the Vaccine Alliance, Gavi, in 2020 will include the objective of improving nutrition for children under the age of five.


Answered by
Andrew Murrison Portrait
Andrew Murrison
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 4th November 2019

Gavi’s mission to save children’s lives by increasing equitable use of vaccines is directly aligned to the UK’s ambition to end preventable deaths of new-born babies and children under 5 years of age by 2030, under Sustainable Development Goal 3, and we have recently renewed our commitment to this goal. The UK is the largest donor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, committing £1.44 billion between 2016 and 2020. This support will vaccinate 76 million additional children by 2020, saving 1.4 million lives from vaccine-preventable diseases in 68 of the world’s poorest countries. The UK will host the pledging conference for Gavi in June 2020.

DFID support to Gavi includes a wider package of health care support designed to strengthen and integrate services. Immunisation is often a child’s first point of contact with their health service. It creates an opportunity where malnourished children can be identified and treated. Vaccines can also prevent some of the infectious diseases and causes of malnutrition.

The UK is committed to investment in the integration of nutrition within other sectors, including health. We have championed efforts to achieve universal health coverage by bringing together initiatives on health security, antimicrobial resistance, and nutrition, into a single universal health coverage approach.

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