Gates Package — page 541

Margarida Matsinhe with medical staff and patients at a health center (Maputo, Mozambique, 2013). Improving Lives by Delivering Vaccines to Children in Mozambique 2013 Gates Vaccine Innovation Award Recipient Vaccines inspire me. They make it possible to do something amazing: protect a young child from a host of diseases for life with a relatively cheap and simple solution. The trick is making sure that all children get fully immunized. That is why I created the Gates Vaccine Innovation Award, to recognize those who are pioneering new strategies to increase vaccine coverage. This year's recipient is Margarida Matsinhe, a field officer for VillageReach, a nonprofit working to improve health care in Mozambique. In the region where Margarida works, half the people live at least two hours from the nearest health post. She has been instrumental in overhauling the vaccine logistics system by removing numerous obstacles that prevent children from getting immunized. Asa result of VillageReach's work: @ The monthly incidence of stockouts in rural health centers: down from 80 percent to 1 percent. @® The amount of time the cold chain is working: up from 40 percent to 96 percent. © The percentage of children receiving basic vaccines: up from 69 percent to 95 percent. The lessons from Margarida's work are being applied to improve health systems in Mozambique, throughout Africa, and even in parts of India. I hope others continue to draw on the work of Margarida Matsinhe to provide access to vaccines for all children. We're also not on track to meet one of the most critical goals--reducing the number of children who die under the age of five by two-thirds. We've made substantial progress. The number of children who die has declined from nearly 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011. While that means 14,000 fewer children around the world are dying every day than in 1990, we won't reach the two-thirds target by 2015. 2013 Annual Letter from Bill Gates 5)