IMF proposes $50bn plan to end the pandemic - official

WASHINGTON - The IMF has proposed a $50 billion plan to end the Covid-19 pandemic, with a target of vaccinating at least 40 percent of the world’s population by the end of 2021.

“Our proposal sets targets, estimates financing requirements, and lays out pragmatic action,” said Kristalina Georgieva, head of the International Monetary Fund, at the Global Health Summit held in Rome as part of the G20.

Looking ahead to a long- term sustainable global economic recovery, the plan then aims to have at least 60 percent of the world’s population vaccinated by the end of 2022.

The authors of the report point out that it is now recognised that there will be no real end to the economic crisis without an end to the health crisis.

It is therefore in the interest of all countries to put a definitive end to the pandemic, it argues. “For some time we have been warning of dangerous divergence of economic fortunes,” said Georgieva.

“It will only worsen as the gap widens between wealthy countries that have access to vaccines and poor countries that do not.”

At the end of April, less than two percent of the population of Africa had been vaccinated while more than 40 percent of the population in the United States and more than 20 percent in Europe had received at least one dose of vaccine against Covid, the IMF said.

The fund is prioritising closing the vaccine gap to put the world back on the path to growth. The goal is to “help bring the pandemic substantially under control everywhere for everyone’s benefit,” Georgieva said. – AFP.