UNICEF, the WHO and the World Bank came together today to announce that while more children are being vaccinated than ever before, nearly 24 million of the world’s most at-risk children are still not receiving life-saving vaccinations. Reaching these children will require an estimated $1 billion each year.

The announcement came today after new data was released in the The State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunization, a report jointly-authored by the three organizations. The report found that 2008 was a record high for global vaccinations, with more than 106 million children immunized. The report acknowledges that donor support for the GAVI Alliance (a public-private partnership launched in 2000 to increase access to new and underused vaccines) played a large role in making this possible. More than 200 million children have been immunized with vaccines funded by GAVI and over 3.4 million premature deaths have been averted.

This comes on the heels of an announcement last month by UNICEF that in 2008, child deaths dropped below 9 million (to 8.8 million) for the first time, thanks in large part to immunizations, the use of insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria and Vitamin A supplementation. Yet more than 3 million of the 8.8 million children who still die every year are dying from two main killers: pneumonia and diarrhea. New vaccines exist that could prevent the majority of these deaths, but they are still not available in the world’s poorest countries.

Over the coming months and years, GAVI Alliance will be the main vehicle for getting these new vaccines to the countries that need them most. With increased donor support, GAVI partners plans to introduce the vaccine against pneumococcus, the bacterium that causes pneumonia, in 42 countries and the vaccine against rotavirus, which causes diarrhea, in 44 countries by 2015.

Together, these could prevent an estimated 11 million child deaths by 2030. Here at ONE we’re looking forward to helping GAVI, donors and other partners to make this plan a reality.