The GAVI Alliance Board announced today that it has appointed Dr Seth Berkley as the new chief executive officer of the GAVI Alliance. Dr Berkley, founder of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), is a Harvard-trained physician, CDC-trained epidemiologist and a leading global vaccines advocate.
Dr Berkley is an experienced leader in global public health with strong advocacy skills and is highly motivated to making vaccines available for all children.” I am confident that, with Dr Berkley as the CEO, the Alliance will further increase its crucial role in providing cost effective immunisation for the world’s disadvantaged, stated Dagfinn Høybråten, GAVI Alliance Board Chair.
Under his leadership, IAVI implemented a global advocacy programme that assured that vaccines receive prominent attention in the media and in political fora such as the G8, EU and the UN. He also oversaw the creation of a virtual vaccine product development effort involving industry, academia, and developing country scientists.
Prior to founding IAVI in 1996, Dr Berkley was an officer of the Health Sciences Division at The Rockefeller Foundation where he managed programmes on vaccines, AIDS, reproductive health and public health training in Africa, Asia and Latin America. His past experience also includes work at the US Centers for Disease Control and the Task Force for Child Survival at the Carter Center where he served as the Ministry of Health Epidemiologist in Uganda. Dr Berkley has been featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine and recognised by TIME magazine in 2009 as one of the “100 most influential people in the world.”
He is expected to take up his new role in August but will participate in several key GAVI meetings, including the Alliance’s first pledging conference on June 13, which will be hosted by the UK government. At the conference, GAVI will seek to raise US$ 3.7 billion in additional funds to accelerate the introduction of new and underused vaccines in low-income countries and save up to four million lives by 2015.
The GAVI Alliance is a Geneva-based public-private partnership aimed at improving health in the world’s poorest countries. The Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists. It support consists of providing life-saving vaccines and strengthening health systems. In its first decade of work, GAVI has financed the immunisation of more than 288 million children and prevented more than five million premature deaths.