ACT Accelerator faces $35 billion current financing gap: WHO DG

Urges countries to focus on four essential priorities to curb COVID-19

In a recent press briefing, the WHO and partners published a detailed strategic plan and investment case for the urgent scale-up phase of the ACT Accelerator, building on the success of the start-up phase.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also revealed that the current financing gap for the ACT Accelerator stands at $35 billion, of which $15 billion is needed immediately to to fund research and development, scale up manufacturing, secure procurement and strengthen delivery systems that have been developed.

World leaders are to meet virtually for a high-level side event during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly to discuss the work of the ACT Accelerator, and to call for the financial commitments to realise its promise.

Commenting on the approaching flu season in the northern hemisphere, and with cases and hospitalisations due to the COVID-19 pandemic increasing, the WHO DG said many countries find themselves struggling to strike the right balance between protecting public health, protecting personal liberty and protecting their economies.

He therefore urged countries to focus on four essential priorities to curb COVID-19: prevent amplifying events; protect the vulnerable; educate, empower and enable communities to protect themselves and others, using every tool at their disposal; and get the basics right: find, isolate, test and care for cases, and trace and quarantine their contacts.

The WHO DG expressed the hope that by the end of next year, the ACT Accelerator aims to deliver 2 billion doses of vaccine; 245 million courses of treatment; and 500 million diagnostic tests to low- and middle-income countries.

Mentioning that the number of countries joining the COVAX facility grows every day, he revealed that so far, 67 high-income countries have formally joined and another 34 are expected to sign, joining 92 lower-income countries who are eligible for financial support through.

While admitting that $35 billion is a lot of money, the WHO DG said that in the context of arresting a global pandemic and supporting the global economic recovery, it’s a bargain. “To put it in perspective, $35 billion is less than 1 per cent of what G20 governments have already committed to domestic economic stimulus packages. Or to put it another way, it’s roughly equivalent to what the world spends on cigarettes every two weeks.”

World leaders are to meet virtually for a high-level side event during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly to discuss the work of the ACT Accelerator, and to call for the financial commitments to realise its promise.