Geneva, 16 October 2023 – The African Union Commission (AUC), Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance last week concluded a three-day forum to outline a pathway towards extensive collaboration in alignment of the tripartite Memorandum of Understanding signed between the organizations in May 2023. Through the MoU, the three organizations commit to increase access and accelerate the uptake of life-saving vaccines across African Union member states, by leveraging their collective resources, expertise and expansive networks to collaboratively address a broad range of health issues.
Senior leadership from all three organisations as well as technical experts, contributed to the action-oriented sessions, which were aligned across the following cross-cutting issues:
- Fostering sustainable and equitable systems for immunisation, including reaching zero dose children, overcome barriers, and building a resilient health workforce
- Building public trust and confidence in immunization, including demand generation and social behavioral change, and aligning immunization-related communications and advocacy
- Realizing the continental vision to expand vaccine manufacturing in Africa, including the facilitation of efficient regulatory pathways and timely authorisations of vaccines and efficient, effective pharmacovigilance
- Strengthening diagnostic and disease surveillance capacity for epidemic prone vaccine-preventable diseases
In addition to these discussions, the delegations also engaged in preliminary discussions on the design of Gavi’s next five-year strategic period, “Gavi 6.0”, which will run from 2026-2030, as well as ways to align on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response activities. The AUC and Africa CDC delegation was led by Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, Ag. Deputy Director General, Africa CDC. Gavi’s delegation was led by Pascal Barollier, Chief Engagement Officer and Thabani Maphosa, Managing Director, Country Programmes Delivery.
“We have come together to give life to the tripartite MoU and secure the health of the continent of Africa. We have committed to work in synergy and give Africa tangible results for immunisation in the shortest time,” said Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, Deputy Director General of the Africa CDC.
“The work our organizations undertake is intrinsically linked, and it is critical that we have come together in service of the AUC’s continental vision for public health, the New Public Health Order,” said Thabani Maphosa, Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery at Gavi. “This week’s workshop was the time to turn our deep commitment to collaboration into a tangible plan of action. Gavi is proud to be a partner to the African Union Commission and Africa CDC, and we are excited to be expanding this partnership into so many aspects of our work.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is a continental autonomous Public Health agency of the African Union which supports Member States in their efforts to strengthen health systems and improve surveillance, emergency response, prevention and control of diseases.
For more information, visit https://africacdc.org/
Media contact;
Ms Dorothy Wambeti Njagi
Senior Communication Officer, Africa CDC
Njagid@africa-union.org
About Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases – bringing together developing country and donor governments, WHO, UNICEF, the vaccine industry, financing and technical agencies, civil society, philanthropies and other private sector partners. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 1 billion children – and prevented more than 17.3 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 78 lower-income countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global vaccine stockpiles and outbreak response. 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.
Learn more at www.gavi.org and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Meg Sharafudeen, Gavi msharafudeen@gavi.org
