Gavi announces launch of preventive birth vaccination programs against Ebola, routine multivalent meningitis, human rabies and hepatitis B

• A historic step: preventive vaccination against Ebola will become the norm in the countries most at risk

• Gavi will also support low-income countries in the routine administration of human rabies vaccine for post-exposure prophylaxis, as well as multivalent meningococcal conjugate and hepatitis B birth-dose vaccines.

• Dr Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi: “Gavi’s ability, as an Alliance, to protect health and save lives depends on ensuring that vaccines are accessible, as quickly as possible, to those who need them. need it most. The new programs launched today demonstrate the impact of this work. For example, Ebola is a terrible disease that can devastate entire communities. In a decade, we were able to go from having no approved vaccines during a deadly outbreak to having a global stockpile that helped reduce cases and deaths – and now vaccines are even being used preventatively to protect people most at risk.

Geneva June 13, 2024 – Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, announced today that the low-income countries it supports can now apply to introduce four additional vaccines: the preventive Ebola vaccine, the human rabies vaccine for post- exposure, multivalent meningococcal conjugate and hepatitis B birth dose. These four programs were previously approved by the Gavi Board but suspended either due to the COVID-19 pandemic (in the case of human rabies for post-exposure prophylaxis and the birth dose of hepatitis B), pending the availability of suitable products (multivalent meningococcal vaccines), or appropriate policy recommendations (preventive vaccination against Ebola).

The latest expansion of Gavi’s vaccine portfolio is in line with Gavi’s commitment to ensuring that low-income countries have access to effective vaccines as soon as possible. The portfolio will be further expanded during Gavi’s next strategic period, 2026 to 2030, which will aim to protect more people from more diseases, faster than ever. The continuation of all Gavi-supported programs beyond 2025 depends on successful fundraising for the Alliance’s next strategic period.

Historic progress against Ebola

Marking a historic milestone for global health security and the protection of health and frontline workers, Gavi will begin funding preventative Ebola vaccination in countries most at risk of outbreaks of the deadly viral disease. The move was made possible by a decision by the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization last month to formally recommend the use of the two licensed Ebola vaccines for preventive purposes in populations at high risk of exposure to Ebola through their roles as frontline healthcare providers and in response to outbreaks. The decision was based on new data on effectiveness, duration of protection and availability of supplies.

Gavi first committed to supporting Ebola vaccination in 2014, during the deadly 2014 to 2016 outbreak in West Africa – subsequently facilitating the use of experimental doses to respond to the outbreak and accelerating the prequalification process and the establishment of a global stockpile, launched in 2021. In addition to supporting the epidemic response from the global stockpile financed by Gavi, Gavi will now make vaccines available for preventive vaccination and will continue to finance In addition, operational costs related to vaccination in low-income countries.

Ebola is a rare but serious disease in humans, with an average mortality rate of around 60% – in some cases much higher depending on the response to an outbreak. However, the availability of safe and effective vaccines has significantly reduced the number of cases and deaths during outbreaks, helping to bring them under control quickly. Additional support for preventative vaccination of those most at risk is important as evidence increasingly indicates that, in addition to the risk of transmission from infected animals to humans, viral resurgence among Ebola survivors can also trigger new epidemics several years later. Preventative vaccination will ensure that essential frontline workers are already protected from infection and death before outbreaks begin – saving lives and avoiding disruption of services in healthcare settings – thereby reducing the risk of further spread between the communities.

“Gavi’s ability, as an Alliance, to protect health and save lives depends on ensuring that vaccines are accessible as quickly as possible to those who need them most. The new programs launched today demonstrate the impact of this work,” said Dr Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “For example, Ebola is a terrible disease that can devastate entire communities. In a decade, we were able to go from having no approved vaccines during a deadly outbreak to having a global stockpile that helped reduce cases and deaths – and now vaccines are even being used preventatively to protect people most at risk.

New tools against deadly infectious diseases

In July 2023, a new multivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine which protects against the five major meningococcal meningitis serogroups affecting Africa – meningococcal serogroups A, C, W, Y and X – has received WHO prequalification. It is the only vaccine that protects against serogroup in response to serogroup C and meningococcus. W epidemics in Nigeria and Niger. With the application period opening today, high-risk countries can officially roll out this new vaccine through routine programs and preventive campaigns.

Meningococcal disease causes hearing loss, brain damage, seizures, loss of limbs or other disabilities, and even death every year. It is particularly widespread in the “meningitis belt” of sub-Saharan Africa which includes 26 countries. Over the years, Gavi has worked with countries to support meningococcal A vaccination, reaching almost 400 million people through campaigns and routine immunization. These efforts have helped Africa. defeat meningitis A, with no new cases detected since 2017. The addition of MenFive® to health systems toolboxes raises the possibility that other circulating serogroups could also one day be defeated.

Gavi’s vaccine investment strategy for 2018 also identified human rabies vaccines for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) as a highly effective vaccine to add to the portfolio. With implementation delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gavi and partners have been working since 2018 to prepare for the launch of the program, which will support the provision of human rabies vaccines for PEP in Gavi-supported countries and where rabies is endemic. Rabies is a serious public health problem in more than 150 countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, causing tens of thousands of deaths each year. Children aged 5 to 14 account for almost half of all deaths. Once a person shows symptoms after exposure to the rabies virus, the disease is 100% fatal, meaning vaccination in high-risk areas is essential, especially as access to rabies immunoglobulins is unlikely in most countries.

Similarly, Gavi’s VIS 2018 recommended the inclusion of hepatitis B vaccine at birth within the Gavi portfolio. Gavi-supported countries already offer routine hepatitis B vaccination using pentavalent and hexavalent vaccines, which are given to children as part of the first round of vaccinations. However, there is growing evidence that a dose given at birth provides essential additional protection. Hepatitis B kills approximately 884,000 people per year. Newborns are at greatest risk of hepatitis B and nine in ten infected infants will develop chronic hepatitis B, while a quarter will develop serious liver disease. Vaccination is essential because although the virus can be transmitted through bodily fluids, many infants are infected in the womb or during delivery when their mothers carry the virus. Children can be silent carriers of the infection who only become symptomatic in their 40s or 50s, when they discover they have liver failure (because inflammation causes cirrhosis) or of liver cancer.