“Vaccines are among the most successful and cost-effective health investments in history,” Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance, writes in this post in the Huffington Post’s “Impact” blog. Because vaccines have saved millions of lives, “donors, the global health community and developing countries themselves [must] stay focused on immunization,” he writes.

Though that “is a tough challenge for donor governments who are facing very real and very serious budget deficits … Republicans and Democrats have an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate their continued cooperation on cost-effective health solutions for poorer nations that yield real results” by “continu[ing] the decade-long, bipartisan collaboration [for] championing global immunization,” Berkley states. “The return on investment in global health is tremendous, and the biggest bang for the buck comes from vaccines,” he writes, concluding, “For just a small percentage of the total foreign assistance program, which in itself makes up just one percent of the federal budget, the U.S. can lead a transformation in child health and survival around the world” (10/19).