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GAVI's Fourth Partners Forum starts with spectacular ceremony at Hanoi Opera House


The Ba Dinh District Children's Dance Troupe perform at the Hanoi Opera House for the opening ceremony of the Partners' Forum. Copyright: GAVI Alliance 2009

Children's dance troupe remind participants of the event's true objective.


Children stole the limelight from heads of state, VIPs and Royalty at the Hanoi Opera House on Wednesday evening in a special reception organised by the Vietnamese Government to celebrate the start of the GAVI Alliance's fourth Partners' Forum.

"Over the next two-days, I ask you to keep our focus, to advocate for the power of vaccines."
Mary Robinson, GAVI Board Chair

Performing in front of an audience that included Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Nguyễn Thiện Nhân, GAVI Board Chair and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and Her Royal Highness Princess Cristina of Spain, the Ba Dinh District Children's Dance Troupe offered a vibrant reminder to the Forum's over 400 participants of the true objective of this week's two day Forum: guaranteeing new generations of children easy access to life-saving vaccines.

South African singer and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Yvonne Chaka Chaka underlined the message with an emotional plea to participants to maintain their support for GAVI and its efforts to protect children from vaccine-preventable disease.

'We have chosen a path, let no-one turn us back. Let's win this war, for the sake of our children," she said, before breaking into a spontaneous rendition of 'Hush little baby'.

Breadth and depth

The two-day conference in Hanoi, which runs from November 18-20, brings together over 400 representatives of GAVI's public-private sector partnership, including more than 30 Ministers of Health, Government donors, civil society and industry representatives, as well as researchers and development experts.

"For the first time, many participants are seeing the true breadth and depth of the partnership that makes the GAVI Alliance so unique," said GAVI's Chief Executive Officer, Julian Lob-Levyt.

Foundations

Entitled 'Towards 2015: Responding to the call for life-saving vaccines', the Forum will celebrate GAVI's first 10 years, but also help lay the foundations for the challenges ahead by inviting participants to debate the Alliance's 2010-15 strategy.

Despite figures released this week showing that, since 2000, GAVI support has helped avert more than four million premature deaths caused by pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and hepatitis B, more than 20 million children go without basic life-saving vaccines.

"We have the the systems in place, the partnerships, the collective commitment to save many more lives against some of the world's leading killers: pneumonia and diarrheal diseases and then onto malaria and HPV and, I hope in our lives' time, HIV/AIDS," said Lob-Levyt.

Progress

Mrs Robinson reminded participants of the progress that developing countries had made since the last last Partners Forum in 2005.

"The challenge that was faced then was to ensure that countries understood the importance of immunisation and that they made their voices hearded in their demand for vaccines," she said. "Well, four years later, you have made yourselves heard. Immunisation rates have never been higher."

Vietnam

"Thanks to GAVI's support and assistance to Vietnam, far fewer children are dying or becoming ill from vaccine-preventable diseases," said Dr. Nguyen Quoc Trieu, the Minister of Health of Vietnam.

Since 2000, Vietnam has used development support to eradicate both polio and newborn tetanus The country's current multi-year plan for immunisation targets the elimination of measles and the reduction of diphtheria and pertussis.

Answer the call

"We must maintain and increase immunisation rates. We must continue to answer the call from countries for life-saving vaccines," added Mrs. Robinson, addressing the packed 100-year-old opera house.

"Over the next two-days, I ask you - as the Chair of the GAVI Board but also as a human rights advocate - to keep our focus, to advocate for the power of vaccines, to renew our common commitment and to recognise the opportunity - and the challenges - that lies ahead. We owe it to every child who does not have a voice."