Geneva, 15 April 2024 – Ahead of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s Board Retreat on April 17-18, where the Board will shape Gavi’s strategic framework for the next five years, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) stressed that Gavi and its Board need to do more to get Gavi-supplied vaccines to people in humanitarian settings, including by incorporating MSF’s lessons learned from decades of vaccinating people in hard-to-reach places.
“Between October and December 2023, admissions of people with measles to MSF facilities in Maiduguri, Northeast Nigeria reached record numbers, with 3,965 patients treated – almost three times more than for the same period in 2022,” said Abdulwahab Mohamed, MSF medical coordinator. “The alarming rise in the number of cases is partly due to the challenges of running vaccination campaigns in the rural communities surrounding Maiduguri, which include building community trust and oftentimes simply being unable to access some areas due to insecurity in the region. One reason why Gavi should adapt their policies and practices, is so that the vaccine providers who are better able to access hard-to-reach places can more readily protect people, and especially children, from vaccine preventable diseases.”
