Gavi appoints Muhammad Pate next CEO, Vaccine Alliance
By Sola Ogundipe
Nigeria’s former Minister of State for Health Dr Muhammad Ali has been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced following an extensive recruitment.
According to a statement, Pate, who served as Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health between 2011 and 2013, will officially take over on 3 August 2023 from Dr Seth Berkley, who will step down after 12 years leading the Alliance.
A proven global health leader with experience at the national and international levels, Pate was selected following a yearlong recruitment process personally overseen by the Chair of the Gavi Board, Professor José Manuel Barroso, and is expected to bring a wealth of experience to the role.
A medical doctor trained in both internal medicine and infectious diseases, Pate, who has an MBA from Duke University in the United States, will lead Gavi as it continues its work to support routine immunisation, outbreak response and COVID-19 vaccinations around the world.
As Nigeria’s Minister of State for health, he led a flagship initiative to revive routine vaccinations and primary health care, chaired a presidential taskforce 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 $18 billion COVID-19 global health response and represented the Bank on various boards, including those of Gavi, the Global Fund, CEPI and UNAIDS.
He is currently the Julio Frenk Professor of Public Health Leadership at Harvard Chan School of Public Health and has served on several health-focused boards and expert panels .
Commenting on the appointment, Prof Barroso said: “Dr Muhammad Ali Pate stood out in a field of world-class candidates. With his knowledge and experience of both national immunization programming and international emergency response and global finance, 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.”
In a response, Pate, whose appointment was confirmed at an extraordinary meeting of the Gavi Board, said: “I’m deeply honoured to be joining Gavi as its incoming CEO.
Gavi is one of the most impactful organisations in global health, a testament to the great work of the Alliance partners and Secretariat staff. It will be my privilege to lead it, building on the work of Dr Seth Berkley, and continue to support countries to scale up critical routine immunisation programmes, reach more zero-dose children, expand access to new vaccines, transform primary health care systems, and help fight outbreaks and future pandemics.”
Berkley has led Gavi for more than half of its existence, making it a centrepiece within the global health landscape, including recently co-establishing COVAX to serve countries during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, having so far shipped nearly 1.9 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to 146 countries.
Since he 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.
Commenting on Pate’s appointment, Berkley said: “Leading Gavi and helping the Alliance to continually surpass itself in terms of saving lives, protecting children and supporting countries during global health emergencies has been the greatest honour of my career. I am proud and humbled to have been part of what the Alliance has achieved, and I am confident in its future under Muhammad’s leadership: having worked with him during his time as Minister and at the World Bank, I know he understands intimately the landscape we work in and will be uncompromising in his drive for public health equity.”
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 981 million children – and prevented more than 16.2 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 lower-income countries.
Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningococcal and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation, above all the zero-dose children who have not received even a single vaccine shot. The Vaccine Alliance employs innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save millions more lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency.
Gavi is a co-convener of COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, together with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners.