Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

Board- 2026-Mtg- 02-Doc 02a 1 Report to the Board 1 -2 July 2026 Report of the Chief Executive Officer 24 June 2026 Dear Members of the Board, The past two years have been among the most challenging in global health in recent memory, and Gavi has not been immune to these pressures. Throughout this period, we have responded with urgency, discipline, and a clear focus on adapting to a rapidly changing environment.

Just a decade ago Ebola was seen as a disease without a cure. Today, getting to a treatment centre early could make the difference between life and death. To find out what happens inside these centres, VaccinesWork spoke to Dr Gabriel Muhehe Tshiwisa, a medical doctor and head of the emergency department at the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), which provides healthcare to populations facing health crises, epidemics or natural disasters.

It costs Sumayiya Namboozo, from Webuta village in Mbale City, eastern Uganda, about US$ 30 to travel to and from the nearest health centre by motorbike taxi – a steep fee for an otherwise free vaccine. The alternative is to strap her child to her back and walk. “If I decide that today I am going to the hospital, that means a full day is killed. But also, it’s risky and tiresome to walk for three hours with the baby on the back.

At a glance Childhood vision loss, in many cases a result of preventable infection, is a critical health challenge in Nigeria and across Africa. In Nigeria, just 4.4% of people access eye-care, meaning many children with poor vision have never been diagnosed, or offered interventions that could prevent them falling behind in education. That’s something Dr Chibueze Anugwom, who is blind himself, has set out to change.

The Ebola outbreak unfolding in Africa carries a warning far beyond the communities currently affected. It is a stark reminder that despite years of global commitments to strengthen pandemic preparedness, outbreaks like this continue to emerge, spread and cross borders faster than health systems can consistently contain them.

One of the clearest snapshots of childhood immunisation was released today, offering fresh insights into the health of the world’s children. Published each year by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, the WHO/UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization Coverage (WUENIC) track how many children received routine vaccines against diseases such as measles, tetanus and polio in 2025.

Geneva, 15 July 2026 – Each year WHO and UNICEF release global and national routine immunisation coverage estimates (WUENIC). Immunisation in the lowest-income countries is supported by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance – a partnership that helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children, and includes WHO and UNICEF as core members. Below, Gavi analyses what the 2025 WUENIC data says about the state of immunisation in the 57 low- and lower-middle income countries it supports.

At a glance Jammu and Kashmir has recorded almost 213,000 dog bites since 2022. As India still remains the global epicentre of dog-mediated human rabies, each one of those injuries has needed to be regarded as a potential exposure In the absence of vaccination, rabies is almost 100 percent fatal. Fortunately, the people of Jammu and Kashmir are well informed that post-exposure prophylaxis, a protocol which includes several doses of the vaccine, is a must following a bite or scratch.

At a glance After decades of research, two vaccine candidates against Group B streptococcus (GBS) are in late-stage clinical trials, with several others in earlier stages of development and testing. Because serious GBS infections in newborns are relatively rare and can be difficult to diagnose, global health organisations, regulatory and policy partners are pursuing an alternative approval pathway based on immune correlates of efficacy, rather than measuring whether babies develop GBS disease.

Memories of pandemics are often contentious. They can be disputed, uncomfortable and politically charged. As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to feel more distant, governments, communities and families have started asking how it should be remembered. Efforts range from personal memorials for lost loved ones to official commemoration programmes. Looking at how earlier societies remembered pandemics can help inform how we commemorate COVID-19 today.