New investments from the US, Germany, the European Commission, Japan, and Canada to fund development and equitable rollout of tests, treatments and vaccines needed to end the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic
Commitments of over $4.3 billion to the ACT Accelerator partnership to develop and distribute effective tests, treatments, and vaccines around the world were made at the virtual G7 leaders meeting hosted by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and at the Munich Security Conference.
The ACT Accelerator’s initial needs for 2020-2021 were $38.1 billion. Prior to these latest contributions, an mobilisation of sovereign donors, private sectors, philanthropic and multilateral contributors had already committed $ 6 billion.
Considering those pledges, and costs adjustments, these latest contributions bring the total committed to the ACT Accelerator partnership to $ 10.3 billion and reduce the funding gap to $ 22.9 billion.
As per a WHO release, the US committed an initial $2 billion to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment and a further $2 billion through 2021 and 2022, of which the first $500 million will be made available when existing donor pledges are fulfilled and initial doses are delivered to AMC countries.
Germany committed $ 1.8 billion with contributions to all pillars and partners of the ACT Accelerator across tests, treatments, vaccines, and health systems strengthening while the European Commission committed $ 363 million for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment.
Likewise, Japan committed $ 79 million for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment and UNITAID and Canada committed $ 59 million to the ACT Accelerator.
In addition, the European Investment Bank is providing a further $ 242 million in loan guarantees which will help the ACT Accelerator partnership to frontload future payments to speed up the response.
The UK’s commitment to join Canada, France, Norway and the European Union in sharing its additional vaccine doses with developing countries is a vital step to increase volume of vaccines available worldwide and support rapid reduction of virus transmission amongst some of the world’s our most vulnerable and exposed populations.
The WHO release notes that further commitments are needed to fully fund the work of the ACT Accelerator and enable the delivery of more than 2 billion doses of vaccine; medical oxygen and millions of treatment doses including dexamethasone and new products, as and when they become available; and over 900 million diagnostic tests including high-quality, lower-cost molecular tests, antigen detection RDTs (Ag-RDTs) and self-tests. This work will also support the urgent need for rapid R&D, product evaluation, and regulatory pathways for new and modified tests, treatments and vaccines to meet the needs of global response programmes and the threat of new and emerging variants.