Increase vaccination campaigns in LICs:WHO

The heads of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organisation (WHO) and World Trade Organization recently held high-level consultations with Gavi and UNICEF, aimed at increasing the use of COVID-19 vaccines and other critical medical countermeasures in low-income (LIC) and lower middle-income (LMIC) countries and supporting countries to be better prepared, resourced, and ready to roll out vaccines. The experts agreed to work with countries to support and strengthen their national vaccination goals consistent with the global target to vaccinate 70 per cent of the populations in all countries by mid-2022. The emergence of the Omicron variant underscores the vital need for fair and broad access to vaccines as well as testing, sequencing, and treatments to end the pandemic. Addressing vaccine inequity, particularly in LICs, requires increasing the supplies of vaccines to COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) and the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), encouraging LICs and LMICs to purchase additional vaccine doses, and enhancing country readiness to deploy vaccines. Furthermore, to facilitate trade flows to support the manufacturing and distribution of vaccines and other COVID tools, export restrictions must be rolled back and trade-facilitation measures must be put in place. Fully funding the ACT-A Accelerator’s Financing Framework would play an important role in narrowing these gaps and reaching the global target.