LONDON: The global vaccine organization Gavi wants $9 billion from governments and foundations to fund immunization efforts in the world’s poorest countries over five years, it said on Thursday.
The amount was finalized at a meeting in Paris, where donors also began announcing commitments for the organization’s plan for 2026-2030. Gavi said it had already raised $2.4 billion of the total with months more fundraising to go, including $1.58 billion from the United States.
A separately funded $1.2 billion scheme to boost vaccine production in Africa, the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, also launched.
Gavi helps low-income countries buy vaccines to protect against killer diseases. Around one billion children have been immunized as a result of Gavi’s work since 2020.
Gavi Chief Executive Sania Nishtar said the group aims to move more quickly and offer more vaccines. This will include expanding a malaria vaccine roll-out, which began in Cameroon this year, as well as catching up on routine programs for diseases like measles, which were set back by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The global vaccine alliance wants to reach “the highest number of children, covering them against the widest number of diseases ... in the shortest possible time,” Nishtar told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday, ahead of the meeting.
The organization wants to reach 500 million children in the next five years, including 50 million children with the malaria vaccine.
Gavi board documents had suggested the alliance needs up to $11.9 billion for its work from 2026 on. The remaining money will come from leftover COVID-19 financing and some financial instruments the organization has in place, Nishtar said, although she acknowledged it was a very challenging time for global health, with aid budgets stretched worldwide by demands from conflicts to climate change.
“Gavi has never had to make trade-offs,” she said. “On the one hand, there is a wide portfolio of vaccines available. On the other hand, we’re looking at an environment where donors are resource constrained.”
But she said she was cautiously optimistic that the organization would raise the amount needed.
Gavi also plans to further expand its work in the coming years, for example by setting up an mpox vaccine stockpile. It is also likely to add a dengue vaccine to its program as climate change puts more countries at risk of outbreaks. It will also establish a “day zero” $500 million pandemic response fund for quick action on major outbreaks.
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Vaccine group Gavi seeks $9 billion to immunize world’s poorest children
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Vaccine group Gavi seeks $9 billion to immunize world’s poorest children
- A separately funded $1.2 billion scheme to boost vaccine production in Africa, the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, also launched
- Gavi helps low-income countries buy vaccines to protect against killer diseases
’We’ll bring him home’: Thai family’s long wait for Gaza hostage to end
NONG KHAI: Two years after Thai worker Sudthisak Rinthalak was killed by Hamas militants, his family in northeastern Thailand is preparing to welcome his remains home and hold a Buddhist ceremony they believe will bring his spirit peace.
Sudthisak was among 47 hostages whose bodies Hamas has returned under the current ceasefire agreement. The handover of deceased hostages was a key condition of the initial phase of the deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
Sudthisak’s elder brother Thepporn has spent the past two years fulfilling promises he made to his younger sibling, using compensation money to build a new house, buy pickup trucks for their elderly parents and expand their rubber farm.
But the 50-year-old farmer says none of it matters without Sudthisak there to see it.
“Everything is done but the person I did these things for is not here,” Thepporn said, walking through the rubber plantation in Nong Khai province near the Laos border.
Israel identified Sudthisak’s remains on Thursday after Hamas handed over his body as part of a ceasefire deal. The 44-year-old agricultural worker was captured by Hamas at an avocado farm during its October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and later killed at Kibbutz Be’eri.
The last image his family has of Sudthisak came from a video sent by friends that showed him lying face down with militants pointing guns at him.
“I feel sad because I couldn’t do anything to help him,” Thepporn said. “There was nothing I could do when I saw him with my own eyes. He was hiding behind a wooden frame and they were pointing the gun at him.”
For months, the family waited through multiple hostage releases, hoping Sudthisak would be among those freed alive. Each time brought disappointment.
“Whenever there was a hostage release, he was never included,” Thepporn said.
Sudthisak had gone to Israel to earn money to support his father, Thongma, 77, and mother, On, 80, who live in a farming community from which young people commonly go abroad for work.
His sister-in-law Boonma Butrasri wiped away tears as she spoke about the family’s loss.
“I don’t want war to happen. I don’t want this at all,” she said.
Before the conflict, approximately 30,000 Thai laborers worked in Israel’s agriculture sector, making them one of the largest migrant worker groups in the country.
Thepporn said his brother’s death serves as a warning to other Thai workers considering jobs abroad.
“I just want to tell the world that you’ve got to think very carefully when sending your family abroad,” he said.
“See which countries are at war or not, and think carefully.”
Sudthisak was among 47 hostages whose bodies Hamas has returned under the current ceasefire agreement. The handover of deceased hostages was a key condition of the initial phase of the deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
Sudthisak’s elder brother Thepporn has spent the past two years fulfilling promises he made to his younger sibling, using compensation money to build a new house, buy pickup trucks for their elderly parents and expand their rubber farm.
But the 50-year-old farmer says none of it matters without Sudthisak there to see it.
“Everything is done but the person I did these things for is not here,” Thepporn said, walking through the rubber plantation in Nong Khai province near the Laos border.
Israel identified Sudthisak’s remains on Thursday after Hamas handed over his body as part of a ceasefire deal. The 44-year-old agricultural worker was captured by Hamas at an avocado farm during its October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and later killed at Kibbutz Be’eri.
The last image his family has of Sudthisak came from a video sent by friends that showed him lying face down with militants pointing guns at him.
“I feel sad because I couldn’t do anything to help him,” Thepporn said. “There was nothing I could do when I saw him with my own eyes. He was hiding behind a wooden frame and they were pointing the gun at him.”
For months, the family waited through multiple hostage releases, hoping Sudthisak would be among those freed alive. Each time brought disappointment.
“Whenever there was a hostage release, he was never included,” Thepporn said.
Sudthisak had gone to Israel to earn money to support his father, Thongma, 77, and mother, On, 80, who live in a farming community from which young people commonly go abroad for work.
His sister-in-law Boonma Butrasri wiped away tears as she spoke about the family’s loss.
“I don’t want war to happen. I don’t want this at all,” she said.
Before the conflict, approximately 30,000 Thai laborers worked in Israel’s agriculture sector, making them one of the largest migrant worker groups in the country.
Thepporn said his brother’s death serves as a warning to other Thai workers considering jobs abroad.
“I just want to tell the world that you’ve got to think very carefully when sending your family abroad,” he said.
“See which countries are at war or not, and think carefully.”
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