Global Vaccine Action Plan

A World Health Organization framework endorsed by all 194 member states of the World Health Assembly in May 2012, intended to prevent millions of deaths by 2020 by giving people in every community more equitable access to existing vaccines. The Global Vaccine Action Plan grew out of a wider Decade of Vaccines vision, developed through a collaboration that brought together the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the GAVI Alliance, UNICEF, the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the World Health Organization alongside governments, health professionals, vaccine manufacturers and civil society. A later WHO-commissioned review found that many of the plan's specific 2020 targets were not met, but concluded that the effort had nonetheless driven steady progress over the decade, with more children vaccinated each year than ever before and many low- and middle-income countries making large gains in immunization coverage.