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The Vaccine Fund is a financial mechanism developed by GAVI to
raise new resources for immunization and swiftly channel them to
health systems in the world’s poorest countries. Since the
partners of the Alliance provide direction and support,
administrative costs are kept low - approximately 98% of Global
Fund resources go directly to countries.
The Vaccine Fund was created with a generous initial grant of $750
million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Since that time,
the governments of Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States
and the Netherlands have all come on board to support the Vaccine
Fund, pushing its total resources to above $1 billion for
2001-2005. More countries are expected to contribute to the
Vaccine Fund in the next few months and contributions from
corporations and foundations will also be pursued.
Vaccine Fund support to countries currently takes two forms:
(1) provision of new and under-used vaccines, with corresponding
safe immunization equipment, and
(2) funding to help governments strengthen their basic
immunization services.
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