Speaker: Nathalie Ernoult/Juliette Puret
Médecins Sans Frontières is concerned by the slow progress towards the GVAP targets, with only a one percent increase in global vaccination coverage since 2010.
MSF acknowledges the recommendations of the SAGE, but we feel the following four issues warrant immediate attention:
- Middle-income countries continue to face severe challenges in accessing new and more expensive vaccines. It is therefore particularly concerning that the WHO MICs Task Force has recently closed, and we urge reconstitution of a group led by WHO, with special efforts focused on pooled procurement, price transparency and competition to increase affordability.
- While access to vaccination for crisis-affected children has improved slightly, barriers still remain. We call for accelerated efforts to implement WHO guidelines on vaccinating in emergencies, and work by partners to secure access to the lowest global prices for humanitarian actors and governments trying to protect refugees, IDPs and other crisis-affected people.
- Steps need to be taken to implement existing WHO immunization recommendations. For example, children over one year of age whose vaccination schedules have been delayed or interrupted should still be offered immunization. Donors and stakeholders should work to support governments to implement this existing recommendation.
- Only by increasing competition can we improve vaccine affordability. We urge WHO Secretariat to take steps to ensure that pneumococcal conjugate vaccine candidates from developing country manufacturers are prioritised for technical and regulatory support, and that Gavi facilitate the resources to bring these candidate vaccines to market.
Finally, we would like to congratulate the WHO Secretariat for the continued progress in improving vaccine price transparency through the V3P database. The number of countries sharing their vaccine price data with WHO has increased by 25 percent; this is to be commended and we encourage governments to make use of this valuable information.