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- COVAX aims to ensure that all countries have access to a safe and effective vaccine.
- The richest countries gain access to a portfolio of potential vaccines, avoiding the risk of backing any candidate.
- Lower income countries get financial support and equitable access to a vaccine once it is available.
- WHO estimates that a safe and effective vaccine will be available next year.
The only real hope of ending the COVID-19 pandemic is with a vaccine. But at a time of growing nationalism and worn-out global cooperation, how can we ensure that rich countries don’t pile up the injections, leaving poor countries out in the cold?
There is a plan to ensure that everyone has fair access to a potential vaccine: COVAX. It is coordinated by the World Health Organization in association with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance; CEPI, the Center for Innovations in Preparedness for Epidemics and others. So far, 156 economies have been enrolled, representing almost two-thirds of the world’s population.
With COVAX, countries will have “guaranteed access to the world’s largest portfolio of vaccine candidates,” according to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization.
COVAX aims to acquire and distribute doses of a safe, effective and approved vaccine for fair distribution throughout the world. Some 64 high-income countries have already joined the program, including 29 from “Team Europe” as part of an agreement with the European Commission, while 92 low- and middle-income economies will be eligible for assistance.
“By pooling financial and scientific resources, these participating economies will be able to insure against the failure of any individual vaccine candidate and ensure successful vaccines in a cost-effective and targeted manner,” the WHO explained in a press release.
The UK has signed up for COVAX, despite Oxford University developing a vaccine and AstraZeneca is among the candidates currently in phase 3 clinical trials, the last hurdle before possible approval.
COVAX’s initial goal is to have 2 billion doses available by the end of 2021, which GAVI says should be enough to protect vulnerable and high-risk people as well as front-line healthcare workers.
The COVAX scheme was on the agenda of the first day of the Impact Summit on Sustainable Development of the World Economic Forum. Speaking in a virtual session on COVID-19, Anita Zaidi, Director of Vaccine Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said she agreed with the WHO estimate that a vaccine would be ready to be widely deployed by mid-September. next year.
Zaidi said a global approach like COVAX was needed to counter the risk of vaccine nationalism, as countries rush to secure a stock for their own citizens, and to guarantee access to the poorest countries.
Nigerian Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said his country strongly supported the initiative, highlighting the global nature of the pandemic and the need for solidarity.
“It is a problem of humanity and it should be a solution of humanity,” he said.
According to the World Health Organization, COVAX is funded by governments, vaccine manufacturers, other organizations and individuals, with $ 1.4 billion pledged so far and more funds are urgently needed. The scheme is just one of the pillars of the COVID-19 Tool Access Accelerator (ACT) initiative, which was launched in April by the WHO, the European Commission and France in response to the pandemic.
