SNAP ANALYSIS
Gavi responds to Mozambique’s cholera crisis by financing over 1.7 million vaccines
Geneva, 6 April 2023 – As the cholera spread in Mozambique continues to accelerate, almost 1.8 million vaccines financed by Gavi are on their way to eight affected districts.
The International Coordinating Group (ICG), mandated to manage emergency supplies of vaccines, first approved a request from Mozambique to vaccinate 1,358,682 people over the age of one with a single dose oral cholera vaccine strategy on 9th March and last week approved an additional request to vaccinate 410,629 people with a view of supporting the country’s efforts to limit mortality and reduce the spread of the disease.
The use of oral cholera vaccines early in an outbreak are vital for helping break transmission as one component of a comprehensive response. Of the 1.8 million vaccines requested, almost 1.4 million will be administered in outbreak response campaigns in Cidade de Tete, Angonia, Mutarara, Doa, Cidade da Beira, Marromeu and Chimoio. An additional 411,000 doses will be sent to Quelimane City over the course of the next 10 days.
Mozambique will soon launch their National Cholera Control Plan, which includes the preventive use of cholera vaccines as one pillar of a multi-sectoral, long-term control plan.
Gavi, in partnership with the Global Task Force for Cholera Control, is working to support the country’s preventive vaccination campaign plans in areas with persistent cholera transmission, precipitated by lack of access to safe water and sanitation, exacerbated by knock-on effects of the pandemic as well as other factors including the recent cyclones.
The outbreaks in Mozambique follow a massive Cyclone Freddy which hit the country twice in 5 weeks, resulting to cholera outbreak.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, funds all four of the emergency stockpiles managed by ICG for cholera, Ebola, meningitis and yellow fever. This includes procurement and logistics of vaccine doses delivered to countries via UNICEF as well as operational costs of campaigns to deliver them.
Jalaa’ Abdelwahab, Director, Vaccine Programmes at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance comments on the development:
“Maintaining a stockpile of vaccines that can be rapidly distributed anywhere in the world is absolutely critical when it comes to containing epidemic-prone diseases. In Mozambique, urgent action is required to ensure that the devastation of Cyclone Freddy, which has destroyed thousands of homes and caused such loss of life, isn’t further amplified by the ongoing cholera outbreak: protecting the most vulnerable from deadly disease must now be a top priority. With the persistent threat of cholera outbreaks, Gavi’s priority is to work with our partners to ensure countries are able to plan proactively to control cholera and respond appropriately, and that there is a sufficient supply of vaccines and country support to meet this growing demand.”
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Notes for editors:
The ICG is an international group that manages and coordinates the provision of emergency vaccine supplies and antibiotics to countries during major disease outbreaks. It manages the global stockpile of the oral cholera vaccine. The group is composed of members of WHO, Médecins Sans Frontières, UNICEF, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Gavi.
Gavi funds all the emergency stockpiles managed by ICG. This means paying for the procurement and transport of stockpiles doses delivered to countries via UNICEF. Gavi also covers the operational costs of campaigns to deliver them, channeled to governments, WHO, UNICEF, and others.
Gavi also leads on shaping and incentivizing the markets for these vaccines which are historically limited (Ebola, yellow fever, cholera, meningitis) – working with manufacturers and partners to ensure steadily increasing supply and working with countries and partners to clarify demand.
It is in this capacity that the ICG has temporarily recommended a switch to one-dose, an abundance of caution given the worrying trend of increasing outbreaks. This is in line with current SAGE recommendations for use of OCV.
Countries submit applications to ICG, the applications are reviewed, approved, and doses shipped all within a period of about 10 days. The ICG recommends that countries submit a request within days of when an outbreak is detected.
About Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 981 million children – and prevented more than 16.2 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 lower-income countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningococcal and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation, above all the zero-dose children who have not received even a single vaccine shot. The Vaccine Alliance employs innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save millions more lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency. Learn more at www.gavi.org and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
Gavi is a co-convener of COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, together with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. In its role, Gavi is focused on procurement and delivery for COVAX: coordinating the design, implementation and administration of the COVAX Facility and the Gavi COVAX AMC and working with its Alliance partners UNICEF and WHO, along with governments, on country readiness and delivery.
The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. View the full list of donor governments and other leading organisations that fund Gavi’s work here.
