Lofty targets for equitable vaccination

COVAX, the vaccine pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACTAccelerator), has shipped over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to 144 countries and territories, as on January 19, 2022– an unprecedented achievement in global public health given all the well-known challenges that were faced in 2021. 90 per cent of the shots (nearly

900 million in total) have gone to lower income countries eligible for donor-supported vaccines via the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC).

Together with COVAX partners and the work of other regional initiatives like African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa

CDC) and African Union; Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) in the Americas; Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility (APVAX) in the Asia Pacific region; COVAX has worked to ensure supplies and delivery are coordinated as part of a major global multilateral effort to ensure equitable access to lifesaving tools.

Launched in 2020, COVAX delivered its first vaccines in January 2021, 39 days after the first vaccination outside of a clinical trial. With COVAX having sufficient confirmed supplies to be able to protect approximately 45 per cent of the population of AMC economies thanks to existing cash contributions and dose donations from donors, additional funding is sought to provide the mechanism with the flexibility to respond to the needs of individual AMC countries as they work toward meeting their own national vaccination strategies and adapting these strategies to Omicron and other future variants.

COVAX has played a vital role in delivering more than 1 billion doses to countries, but there is still much more work to do. Fully financing COVAX – along with the other pillars of the ACT Accelerator – is essential to facilitate equitable access to lifesaving vaccines, tests and treatments, as well as supporting health systems to roll out vaccination programmes as soon as possible.

Talking about equitable access to vaccines, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organisation (WHO) said “As the world enters the third year of the deepest health crisis in a century, it is more urgent than ever that the achievements of science in developing multiple safe and effective vaccines in record time are matched by the same level of determination, innovation and cooperation to reach our shared target of vaccinating 70 per cent of the population of every country by the middle of this year.”

To respond to new challenges and support equitable vaccination in countries, Gavi aims to raise at least $5.2 billion in new funding. The goals of this financing are outlined in Break COVID Now, the Investment Opportunity for the Gavi COVAX AMC and includes $3.7 billion to fund a 600 million dose Pandemic Vaccine Pool, $1 billion to support AMC country readiness and delivery and $545 million to cover costs for rollout of donated doses.

“In 2022, we can help break COVID by adapting our support to ensure doses are used rapidly, get into arms safely, and are responsive to country preferences and coverage targets. This will help the world to reduce pandemic risks and uncertainties,” observed Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

In 2022, modelling results estimate that the

Gavi COVAX AMC will save 1-1.27 million lives in eligible countries that would otherwise be lost to the pandemic. The economic cost of the pandemic could be reduced by as much as half in some countries if vaccines are rolled out rapidly.

Dr Richard Hatchett, CEO of Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), called upon the global leaders “The catastrophic failure of the world to ensure global vaccine equity has resulted in an ever-evolving pandemic with highly mutated variants, like Omicron, threatening to impact vaccine efficacy. We must confront these challenges in parallel, pushing forward the urgent need to get vaccines to everybody, everywhere, while also advancing vaccine R&D to ensure our tools remain safe and effective against newly emerging variants. Together, through greater aligned investment in science, alongside investment in enabling fair and equitable global allocation of vaccines through the COVAX AMC, we can remain one step ahead of the virus. Failure to do so will only cause further global tragedy and prolong this devastating crisis.”