Pate, Former Health Minister Appointed Gavi Boss

By AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

The former Minister of State for Health, Muhammad Ali Pate, has been appointed the next Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Vaccine Alliance, also called Gavi.

According to a statement on its website, the Gavi Board approved the appointment on Monday, February 13.

The organisation said Pate would lead Gavi as it continued its work to support routine immunisation, outbreak response and COVID-19 vaccinations worldwide.

The Board chairman, José Manuel Barroso, supervised the year long recruitment process.

Gavi is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half of the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases.

Pate will assume office on August 3, 2023, to replace Seth Barkley, who would have steered the organisation’s affairs for 12 years.

According to Gavi, Pate is trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases, with an MBA from Duke University in the United States.

He served as Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health between 2011 and 2013. He led a flagship initiative to revive routine vaccinations and primary health care, chaired a presidential task force to eradicate polio and introduced new vaccines into the country.

While serving as Global Director for Health, Nutrition and Population of the World Bank and Director of the Global Financing Facility at the World Bank between 2019 and 2021, he led the Bank’s US$ 18 billion COVID-19 global health response.

He represented the Bank on various boards, including Gavi, the Global Fund, CEPI and UNAIDS.

Pate is currently the Julio Frenk Professor of Public Health Leadership at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. In the course of his career, he has served on several health-focused boards and expert panels in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

He stood out in a field of world-class candidates, said Board Chairman. Barroso said with his knowledge and experience of both national immunisation programming and international emergency response and global finance, the appointee stood out among his peers.

“I am confident that Gavi will continue to build on its vision and mission, as well as navigate the many challenges and opportunities we will face.”

Gavi noted that the sitting CEO Seth Berkley had made the organisation a centrepiece within the global health landscape, including recently co-establishing COVAX to serve countries during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.

The statement noted that Gavi had shipped nearly 1.9 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to 146 countries.

“Since Dr Berkley took the helm in 2011, the Alliance has averted 11.8 million future deaths (compared to 4.5 million between 2000 and 2010); and has helped immunise more than 676 million children – more than double the 305 million children reached between 2000 and 2010.

“Thanks to Dr Berkley’s vision for health equity, Gavi has added a number of new vaccines to its portfolio during his tenure, including for HPV, polio, cholera and malaria, and in its current strategy cycle is focusing on reaching zero-dose children across marginalised communities.”

Gavi argued that the economic result of the expansion of its activities during Berkley’s tenure was massive, unlocking over US$ 160 billion of economic benefits compared to US$ 24 billion in its first ten years.