Progress from the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration

by Magdalena Robert and Laurie Werner, Decade of Vaccines Collaboration In March, the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration produced the final, illustrated version of the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), with a foreword by the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration Leadership Council and important annexes. The GVAP is a road map to prevent millions of deaths by 2020 through more equitable access to existing vaccines for people in all communities. It builds on the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy 2006–2015, the United Nations Millennium Declaration, and more recently, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. The GVAP started as a vision for a “Decade of Vaccines”—a world in which all individuals and communities enjoy lives free from vaccine-preventable diseases. The Decade of Vaccines Collaboration was thus formed to pool the collective expertise of vaccine, health, and development experts from around the world to develop a plan to make this vision a reality. Endorsed by 194 member states of the Sixty-Fifth World Health Assembly in May 2012, the GVAP reiterates existing goals and sets new goals for the decade, proposes six strategic objectives and the actions that will support their achievement, and provides an initial estimate of resource requirements and return on investment. Since the World Health Assembly endorsement, the annual reporting process, key metrics, and indicators for the decade have been refined, and all regions are working on its translation to regional realities. In April 2013, just prior to World Immunization Week, the journal Vaccine published a special Decade of Vaccines supplement, which presents the body of knowledge collected as part of the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration. In addition to an article on the GVAP, this supplement includes articles covering vaccine development, the vaccine supply chain, financing, costing and benefits, as well as perspectives from country governments, industry, and civil society. We hope this knowledge will guide vaccine development and delivery and result in lives saved and diseases prevented, controlled, and eliminated. The GVAP and the Decade of Vaccines journal supplement in Vaccine are not the only outcomes of the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration. Recognizing the importance to closely monitor the GVAP implementation progress, the World Health Assembly GVAP resolution of May 2012 called for annual reports on the GVAP’s goals and strategic objectives to be presented to all World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committees, the WHO Executive Board, and the World Health Assembly. The proposed GVAP Monitoring & Evaluation/Accountability Framework was reviewed by the WHO Executive Board and will be reviewed by the World Health Assembly in 2013. Annual progress reports on the Decade of Vaccines and GVAP implementation will be presented to the World Health Assembly every year thereafter. As part of their commitment to the GVAP implementation, the Leadership Council organizations are now also committed to using the GVAP as a road map for World Immunization Week. The purpose is to foster a solid contribution to the processes and mechanisms strengthened by the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration and the Decade of Vaccines mission to extend, by 2020 and beyond, the full benefits of immunization to all people, regardless of where they are born, who they are, and where they live.