Global Vaccine Action Plan and Decade of Vaccines Review and lessons learned reports

Overview

The catalyst for GVAP was the call by Bill and Melinda Gates at the 2010 World Economic Forum for the next decade to be the ‘Decade of Vaccines’. Following the launch of the Expanded Programme on Immunization in 1974 and the commitment to Universal Childhood Immunization in 1984, global immunization coverage with the three-dose series of DTP (diphtheria–tetanus–pertussis) vaccine quadrupled, climbing to 84% by 2010.

Smallpox had been eradicated and use of vaccines was making significant inroads into other infectious diseases. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, established in 2000, was making newer vaccines accessible to the poorest countries, while the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy, launched in 2006, provided a common vision and specific strategies for protecting more people against more diseases.

New vaccines were being developed that held even greater promise. Even so, not all people were benefiting equally from immunization’s advances. Major inequities in access and coverage existed both between and within countries. These inequities led to the vision of the Decade of Vaccines – ‘A world in which all individuals and communities enjoy lives free from vaccinepreventable diseases’.