GAVI offers the DRC nearly US$60M to expand immunization to reduce zero-dose children

DRC – The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has received US$59.7 million from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI’s) Equity Accelerator Fund to help reduce the number of zero-dose children by 35% by 2025.

The fund will over the course of the next two years, help avail much-needed resources towards reaching children that have not received a single shot of a routine vaccine across 11 provinces.

These provinces, which collectively account for 74% of the total number of zero-dose children in the country; Tshopo, Maniema, Kasai-Oriental, Mongala, Kasai, Haut Katanga, Sankuru, South Kivu, Tshuapa, Maindombe, and South Ubangi.

With one of the highest numbers of children missing out on receiving routine vaccines as of 2021 (734,000) globally, and outbreaks of cholera, polio, and measles, this boost comes at a critical time for the country.

Thabani Maphosa, Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery at Gavi said, “Too many children continue to miss out on life-saving vaccines leaving them vulnerable to some of the world’s deadliest diseases.”

Maphosa reaffirmed that with innovation and targeted support, partners in the DRC could reach zero-dose children and ensure that the most marginalized communities were no longer left behind.

Zero-dose children below 59 months living in areas not targeted by the EAF will be supported through the DRC’s immunization catch-up plan for 2023-2024.

Using technology to reach the “unreachable”

Several high-impact activities and innovations will be implemented through the funding that will support local Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and community healthcare workers to identify and monitor zero-dose children and track vaccinations using GPS and SMS. 

Additionally, the initiatives will include investigating and addressing gender-related obstacles that impact demand for vaccines will be key to ensuring there is equitable access and all targeted children are adequately protected.

Concerted efforts will also be made to reach communities living beyond a 5km radius of health facilities, including internally displaced people and refugee populations. 

Also, the program will be piloting the use of drones in areas with limited accessibility and integrating new battery and electricity-free cold chain carriers to ensure vaccines remain at optimum temperatures during transit will also be implemented in select provinces. 

Fulfilling a promise to the Children of the DRC

Dr. Sylvain Yuma Ramazani, Secretary General of the Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Prevention mentioned that The Democratic Republic of the Congo, with support from its partners, was committed to improving the health of its children by reducing morbidity and mortality linked to vaccine-preventable diseases. 

“We are grateful to Gavi for its support towards strengthening our country’s health system. The Vaccine Equity Acceleration Fund is a perfect example of this support and will help reduce the number of zero-dose children in DRC,” Dr. Ramazani added. 

The DRC has made steady progress in achieving high immunization coverage over the years. 

The Mashako 1.0 Plan, implemented in 2019 initially across nine targeted provinces and later expanded to all 26 country’s provinces to improve immunization coverage yielded strong results.

Moreover, complete vaccination coverage improved by 27 percentage points across the nine Mashako provinces, as compared to other provinces, which improved by 15 percentage points.

However, progress slowed down in 2021 with the pandemic and a healthcare workers’ strike negatively impacting access to and uptake of vaccination.

While there are signs of recovery, the 2022 coverage survey showed a 3.1 percentage point increase in full vaccination coverage and one percentage point increase in coverage for three doses of pentavalent vaccine, as compared to 2021. 

Current national coverage for full immunization coverage remains at 45% – below the high levels reached in 2019.

In early 2022, the DRC launched the 2.0 version of the Mashako plan, which aims to consolidate the achievements of the previous plan by prioritizing key activities, including accessing funding at the decentralized level. 

Highlighting best practices and innovations that emerge from this vaccination push and implementing successful pilot activities across other relevant communities will be important to help the country improve coverage, especially when confronted with future outbreaks.

The Gavi’s Equity Accelerator Fund (EAF) ensuring vaccination 

Approved by the Gavi board in 2020, The Equity Accelerator Fund is a time-limited US$500 million funding lever for Gavi-implementing countries, designed to help boost efforts to reach the most at-risk communities. 

So far, US$400 million has been made available to eligible countries, while US$100 million is being channeled to a consortium of partners to target children living outside of government reach in humanitarian settings. 

DRC is the largest recipient of core EAF funding receiving US$ 59.7 million out of a total of $400 million.

The funding will be channeled through the Ministry of Health and the national CSO SANRU and UN Agencies (IOM, UNICEF, UNOPS,  and WHO).

The EAF grant complements Gavi’s existing support to DRC, which aims to address immunization inequity. 

This includes new vaccine introductions such as the second dose of the inactivated polio vaccine and the measles-containing vaccines, implementing mass campaigns and outbreak responses, all of which place special emphasis on reaching non and under-vaccinated children.

Over the past 21 years, Gavi has supported the Government of DRC to accelerate the introduction of the hepatitis B, pentavalent, inactivated poliovirus, rotavirus, measles-rubella, and pneumococcal vaccines.

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