The UPS Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance have announced a commitment of $3m in new funding and logistics support spanning two years, provided by UPS and The UPS Foundation to Gavi.
According to UPS, the new support will enable Gavi to continue to strengthen supply chain networks that deliver essential vaccines to children in the world’s poorest countries, and to further expand coverage of essential childhood vaccines with the mission of eliminating childhood deaths from avoidable diseases.
The UPS Foundation’s contribution of $2m in cash and $1m in UPS in-kind services, combined with a match of $2m from the Gavi Matching Fund, results in a total of $5m toward an expansion of previous shared efforts by the organisations. The contribution will apply to Gavi’s 2021 to 2025 strategic period.
The Gavi Matching Fund was created in 2011 to encourage businesses to invest in global immunisation. The UPS Foundation’ s corporate partnership with Gavi began in 2014. Since that time, UPS has provided funding and technical expertise aimed at establishing reliable cold chain networks, expanding last-mile delivery of vaccines, broadening the pool of trained supply chain managers in priority countries and spearheading innovation.
For example, with the support of the Ugandan government and Minister of Health, in July 2018, UPS and Gavi developed a pilot last-mile vaccine delivery network in three districts around Kampala, Uganda, serving three million people and with the aim to improve the percentage of Ugandan children who receive childhood vaccines. The pilot, which was well received by local health networks, utilized cold chain best practices, vehicles with refrigerators, temperature monitoring tools, stock management systems to track inventory and trigger ordering before vaccines are out of stock.
According to UPS, this new contribution from The UPS Foundation, combined with the Gavi Matching Fund, will be used to support Gavi’s supply chain initiatives across the 2021-2025 period, strengthening the Alliance’s capacity to engage with the private sector and replicate the Uganda model to exponentially increase availability of vaccines for children in other countries.
Source: UPS
