New commitments from governments, international organizations and the private sector support unified approach to end pandemic, backing a response of unprecedented scale, scope and speed—through the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator—as pandemic claims more than 1 million lives
New York: The United Nations and its partners have welcomed a monumental show of solidarity as governments, private sector, civil society and international organizations committed support to the Access to COVID-19 Tools- (ACT) Accelerator initiative launched by the World Health Organization alongside international partners.
“Today, nearly US$1 billion in new financing has been committed to the initiative – the world’s most comprehensive multilateral end-to-end solution to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic,” a World Health Organisation press communique issued on September 30, said.
The ACT-Accelerator, which was co-launched by the World Health Organization, European Commission, France and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation just five months ago, needs an additional US$35 billion to realize its goals of producing 2 billion vaccine doses, 245 million treatments and 500 million tests. The WHO said the new commitments to the initiative are welcome and will be leveraged to catalyze further funding to continue the ACT-Accelerator’s groundbreaking work.
Most urgently, the ACT-Accelerator requires US$15 billion to support immediate capacity-building—for research and development, manufacturing, procurement and delivery systems—by the end of the year.
Also read: 15 billion dollars are needed immediately to exploit the “Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator”
Convening a high-level event at the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly to urgently mobilize support for the ACT-Accelerator, Secretary-General António Guterres’ commended on the “extraordinary international effort to address a human crisis like no other in our lifetimes,” adding that more efforts must be made to further “deepen” the remarkable progress so far.
Prior to UNGA 2020, the ACT-Accelerator has raised US$3 billion out of a need of US$38 billion. More detail can be found in the Act-Accelerator investment case.
The economic rationale for investing in an approach that can accelerate the end of the COVID-19 crisis remains clear. Fully financing the initiative to help shorten the duration of the crisis would pay back this investment in less than 36 hours once global mobility and trade alone are restored.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General said: “I am grateful for the generous financial commitments made today, but we still have a significant funding gap to close. Fully financing the ACT Accelerator will help to control the pandemic, restore confidence and stimulate the global recovery. Frankly, this is not a financial challenge, it’s a test of solidarity. This is a moment for saying no to nationalism and yes to our shared humanity. Because ultimately, the ACT Accelerator is not delivering merely vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. It’s delivering something far more important—hope.”
Yesterday’s event highlighted the substantial results achieved by the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator initiative since its launch: the availability of 120 million affordable and high-quality rapid tests for low- and middle-income countries; a breakthrough in trials with, and a rapid rollout of, Dexamethasone—the only drug found to make a significant difference to patient mortality; the creation of the COVAX Facility – the global mechanism to ensure equitable access to eventual COVID-19 vaccines regardless of income -comprising 168 economies and the largest and most diverse vaccine portfolio in the world, with nine candidate vaccines under evaluation, eight of them in clinical trials.
In another significant show of support, a coalition of 16 pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed an agreement to cooperate on vaccine manufacturing and to scale up production at an unprecedented speed, ensuring that approved vaccines are more broadly accessible and distributed as early as possible.
Recent Commitments at a Glance:
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- United Kingdom – £571m (US$ 732m) for COVAX pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools- (ACT) Accelerator, of which up to £500m (US$ 641m) is to support low- and middle-income countries. This includes a commitment to match £1 for every US$ 4 committed by others up to £250m (US$ 321m).
- Canada – CAD 440m (US$ 332m) for the COVAX pillar of the ACT-Accelerator, of which CAD 220 (US$ 166m) is to support low & middle income countries
- Germany – EUR 100m (US$ 117m) for the COVAX pillar of the ACT-Accelerator, all of which is to support low and middle income countries
- Sweden – US$ 10m for the COVAX pillar of the ACT-Accelerator, all of which is to support low and middle income countries
- World Bank – US$ 12 billion to support developing countries to purchase COVID-19 vaccines as soon as they are available (to be ratified by their shareholders). World Bank President David Malpass said that once the plans are ratified by stakeholders, “having up to US$ 12 billion available in finance will be a game changer because once a safe and effective vaccine is available, it will allow people to resume their lives with confidence.”
- A coalition of 16 pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed an agreement to cooperate on vaccine manufacturing and to scale up production. Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said “One thing I’ve learned studying the history of pandemics is that they create a surprising dynamic when it comes to self-interest and altruism. Pandemics are rare cases where a country’s instinct to help itself is tightly aligned with its instinct to help others. The self-interested thing and the altruistic thing–making sure poor nations have access to vaccines–are one and the same.”
– globalbihari bureau
