Prez Mahama calls for more commitment from GAVI partners

President John Dramani Mahama has called for greater commitment from donors, vaccine manufacturers and partners of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) to enable countries across the world to deliver long-term,  sustainable and routine immunisation programmes.

Opening a mid-term review meeting of the GAVI in Stockholm, Sweden, yesterday, President Mahama said 'this is not just a mid-term review, but one step on the continual path towards securing long-term immunisation programmes."

President Mahama co-hosted the meeting with the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation.

GAVI meeting
The GAVI is a public-private global health partnership committed to saving children's lives and protecting people's health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.

The meeting is being attended by implementing countries, donors, vaccine manufacturers, civil society groups and partners of the GAVI, including the WHO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF and the World Bank.

The meeting is evaluating the progress made by the alliance in its quest to deliver on the goals of the London pledging conference in 2011.

These goals include strengthening health systems to improve immunisation coverage, improving long-term predictability and stability of immunisation financing and helping to improve vaccine market conditions for developing countries.

The Ghana factor
President Mahama said Ghana had been able to accelerate the uptake,  and would continue to introduce new life-saving vaccines through its partnership with the GAVI.

He said the country had so far delivered a range of life-saving vaccines that had saved an estimated 700,000 future deaths.

With the support of GAVI, Ghana was also implementing an innovative health project where mobile phone-based applications would serve as a communication and educational device to remind patients of upcoming appointments.

However, President Mahama said there was still a long way to go to ensure that everyone had equal access to immunisation.

He said huge challenges remained in Ghana as the country was still lagging behind on Millennium Development Goal Four (MDG 4) on child mortality and on MDG 5 on maternal health.

"We are strongly committed to addressing these issues and improving our immunisation and health care, and we are tackling the challenges head-on. We have implemented an MDG acceleration framework, and we are dedicated to committing as much of our own resources as possible to addressing these challenges," he said.

Daily Graphic/Ghana