Vaccine expert lauds Korea for keeping children immunized

Helen Eva

By Kwon Ji-youn

An international vaccine expert has lauded Korea for its efforts to keep the country’s children vaccinated.

Helen Evans, deputy chief executive officer of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), described Korea’s vaccination record as “impressive.”

The alliance is a global health partnership that focuses on immunization.

“Korea has an extremely impressive vaccination record,” Evans told The Korea Times. “The government estimates that 100 percent of Korean children were reached with the ‘international standard’ vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis,” she said

She visited Korea in mid-June as part of her efforts to step up cooperation between GAVI and the East Asian country.

“We would like to see Korea increase its contribution to GAVI in line with the nation’s growing aid budget,” Evans said. “Korea is doing the right thing protecting its children.”

Korea became a donor to the GAVI mission in 2010. GAVI purchases vaccines from two Korean suppliers, LG Life Sciences and Berna Biotech.

“We also work with the Seoul-based International Vaccines Institute (IVI),” she said. “I’m delighted that the IVI will hold its board meeting at GAVI’s headquarters in Geneva later this year.”

Evans said that she spent most of her life in public health and welfare. She led the national communicable diseases program at the Australian Ministry of Health, where she was in charge of improving the standards of public health in the Asia-Pacific region.

She then moved to Geneva, where she became deputy director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a partnership much like GAVI.

In 2009, she became deputy CEO at GAVI.

“I work with teams across the organization and alliance partners to help bring the power of vaccines to communities where children are dying from diseases which children in wealthy countries, including my own, are protected against,” she said.

She added, “I feel that I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for most of my career in programs that aim to improve health and therefore the lives of people.”

GAVI’s mission is to make sure that children have access to vaccinations, even in the poorest of countries.

According to Evans, there are still very many countries that cannot afford vaccines.

“But for me, it is a straightforward matter of equity that these countries should be able to vaccinate their children,” she said.

GAVI, along with partners such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF, provides relevant vaccines to 73 of the poorest countries in the world to protect their children from illnesses.