GAVI
Vaccine Alliance; advance-purchase funder for lower-income countries; $50m Bundibugyo First Response Fund commitment, June 2026.
GAVI now pays for a permanent global mpox vaccine stockpile, launched on 27 August 2026 as Madagascar's clade Ib epidemic outran its doses, after committing $50m in June to buy Bundibugyo Ebola vaccines.
Last refreshed: 4 October 2026 · Appears in 2 active topics
With four Bundibugyo vaccine candidates in play, will GAVI's procurement guarantee prevent a repeat of the COVID-19 access lag?
Timeline for GAVI
Agreed to pay for the stockpile doses
Pandemics and Biosecurity: Madagascar logs half July's mpox casesApproved manufacturing funds that remain unguaranteed without the annex
Pandemics and Biosecurity: PABS annex slips a fourth deadlineApproved an extra $189 million for AVMA at its board meeting
Pandemics and Biosecurity: Gavi funds vaccines made in AfricaCommitted $50m in contingent procurement via First Response Fund
Pandemics and Biosecurity: CEPI and GAVI commit $112m, no treatment yetEbola drug trial awaits DRC, Uganda nod
Pandemics and BiosecurityBackground
GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, is a public-private partnership founded in 2000 and based in Geneva. It pays for vaccines and delivery systems in lower-income countries, drawing on donor governments, the Gates Foundation and drug makers. It co-managed the COVAX facility, has helped immunise more than one billion children and is the main channel for new vaccines into the 57 lowest-income countries.
GAVI works through advance purchase: by promising to buy doses before a product is proven, it gives manufacturers a commercial signal they would not otherwise get. Its 2026 Bundibugyo commitment sits inside the $500m pledged at the Africa CDC summit on 26 May 2026. GAVI 6.0, agreed in July 2026, targets 500 million more children reached and 8 to 9 million deaths prevented by 2030.
GAVI's buying runs ahead of any binding rule on sharing. The WHO talks meant to put pathogen sharing and vaccine access into the Pandemic Agreement closed on 17 July 2026 without an annex text, the fourth deferral. GAVI's procurement and its African manufacturing finance therefore run outside a treaty framework.
Gavi now funds a standing stockpile
GAVI now pays for the doses in a standing mpox reserve, opened on 27 August 2026 by the vaccine-rationing body known as the ICG, at WHO's Africa regional committee in Addis Ababa. UNICEF does the buying. From September countries could ask for doses, ending the ad hoc allocation system set up in 2024.
Madagascar gives GAVI's money its first test. The island produced roughly half of all confirmed mpox cases worldwide in July, and by mid-August its clade Ib count had passed 3,400. WHO blames stockouts and broken cold chains, and only 111,508 people there had a first dose. A reserve GAVI has already paid for is meant to shorten the wait between an outbreak and the first shipment.
Gavi buys ahead of the science
On 1 June 2026 GAVI added $50m in contingent procurement through its First Response Fund for Bundibugyo ebolavirus vaccines, alongside $62m in CEPI development grants across three platforms. The money commits GAVI to buy doses once a candidate wins emergency authorisation. That gives manufacturers a reason to scale up before trial results, though no candidate was expected in human trials for at least 12 months.
On 2 July GAVI's board approved a further $189m for the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, on top of its existing $1bn, with $139m earmarked for buying vaccines made in Africa. The same meeting agreed Gavi 6.0, the 2026-2030 strategy.
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