Federal Republic of Germany will contribute €30 million to the Gavi Alliance in 2012. The financial assistance is up from €20 million in 2011, to support childhood immunization in developing countries.

The announcement from Germany’s Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ) was made ahead of the G8 summit due to start later this week and is part of a plan to implement last year's G8 commitment to the Muskoka initiative for maternal and child health.

“An important part of the G8 Muskoka initiative is to work more closely with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI),” Gudrun Kopp, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Co-operation and Development, said in a press release.

“Gavi has financed the immunization of more than 280 million children in the last decade. We have therefore increased our contributions to €20 million in 2011, a fivefold increase compared with previous years,” she said. Germany has been supporting the Gavi Alliance since 2006 when it gave an annual contribution of €4 million.

Helen Evans, Interim, CEO, Gavi Alliance welcomed the announcement which comes just ahead of it pledging conference on June 13, 2011 when more than 20 major donors would meet to contribute towards Gavi’s 2011-2015 programme.

Immunisation is an extremely cost-effective way to save lives and protect health on a very large scale indeed. If GAVI raises the additional US$ 3.7 billion it needs, it will be able to finance the immunization of 243 million children between now and 2015 in order to prevent four million premature deaths. “We welcome the additional support from Germany, which comes at a crucial moment,” said Evans.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has also offered to match the 2011 and 2012 increases with a €24 million contribution.

“Immunisation is one of the best long-term investments we can make to prevent disease and give children a healthy start in life. The foundation will continue to partner with Germany by matching the increase by Germany over their previous year’s contribution to help save millions of lives in the years ahead,” stated Joe Cerrell, European Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to Dagfinn Høybråten, Chair of the GAVI Alliance Board, the association with Germany would help us to roll out our new vaccines which can help address the two biggest killers of children which are pneumonia and diarrhoea.