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Geneva, 28 September 2015 – Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance today renewed calls for an immunisation indicator to be included in the monitoring framework for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Gavi is committed to playing its part in the ambitious efforts to end poverty by 2030 and welcomes the adoption of the goals.
More than 150 global leaders gathered in New York between the 25th and 27th September to approve the goals. Gavi CEO Dr Seth Berkley participated in one of the sessions, setting out Gavi’s approach to reducing childhood deaths and highlighting how global partnerships can increase their impact for the world’s poorest people.
With the goals agreed, work is underway to finalise a monitoring framework of indicators for each goal. The indicators will cover a range of specific activities within each goal and will enable the global community to hold itself accountable for their progress. Gavi has set out the need for an immunisation indicator as part of the monitoring framework for SDG3.
“The Millennium Development Goals put us on the right path but there is clearly still much more to be done,” said Dr Berkley. “It is important that, in a broader set of goals tackling the myriad challenges the world faces, we do not lose sight of the fundamental importance of a healthy population. An immunisation indicator is a vital tool for measuring the impact of global efforts to increase access to vaccines and we strongly encourage its inclusion in the monitoring framework.”
Every year 1.5 million children under five lose their lives to vaccine-preventable diseases. However, 19 million infants worldwide still miss out on the basic package of vaccines.
Gavi is calling on the Inter-Agency Expert Group (IAEG-SDGs), set up by the UN to develop a global indicator framework, to include a vaccine-specific indicator. This would measure progress against the following objective: Reach and sustain 90% national coverage and 80% in every district with all vaccines in national programmes.
Vaccine-specific indicator
A vaccine-specific indicator would recognise the role of vaccination in ensuring every child has a healthy start to their lives. It is also suitable for tracking overall progress of the SDGs because:
- Immunisation is a critical and practical health coverage measure.
- Every nation measures immunisation and national data can be aggregated at the global level
- The proposed indicator will gauge success across a number of areas including the strength of health systems, equity, human rights and child survival.
The proposed indicator would not require additional monitoring at country level. It would build on a pre-existing indicator already agreed by all UN member states through the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), which was endorsed at the 2012 World Health Assembly.
“The added value of this immunisation indicator is that it is responsive to scientific and development advances by measuring coverage of all vaccines in national programmes,” added Dr Berkley. “It very much aligns with the intent of the SDGs to have relevance at the national level, across all countries, and be able to be meaningfully aggregated.”