A leading group of governments* agreed on Wednesday on a new funding framework in support of the ACT Accelerator, an international collaborative mechanism in the fight against COVID-19. The initiative is particularly targeted at the richest countries.
The first objective of the government coalition is to fill the existing funding gap of 16 billion euros. Accelerator ACTwhich would be collected as donations from participating nations, as jointly reported by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
The framework sets out a set of guidelines for a “fair share” of funding that richer countries should contribute to the ACT global response. The contribution is calculated on the basis of the size of their national economy and the benefits that would accrue to them from a faster recovery in the world economy and trade.
The ACT Accelerator asks donor countries for a contribution of $ 16 billion, out of a total budget of $ 23.4 billion, as immediate grants to be made during the period from October 2021 to September 2022.
The remaining $ 7 billion will be self-financed by middle-income countries, using domestic resources to meet certain procurement needs and with the support of multilateral development banks.
© WHO / Booming / Carlos Cesar
A COVID-19 vaccination center in Luanda, Angola.
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Vaccination in low-income countries does not exceed 10%
The $ 16 billion will be used to fund the work of the various agencies of the ACT Accelerator. The investment will allow them to acquire essential tools to combat COVID-19 and provide them to low-and middle-income countries.
Of the more than 4.7 billion tests against COVID-19 conducted since the start of the pandemic only about 22 million tests have been administered in low-income countries, representing only 0.4 per cent of the global total. Similarly, only 10 per cent of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
This enormous inequality not only costs lives, but it also harms economies and risks the emergence of new, more dangerous variants that could strip current tools of their effectiveness and delay highly vaccinated populations for many months.
PAHO / WHO
In Uruguay, special vaccination centers have been established to combat COVID-19.
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Vaccine fund and other achievements at hand
Closing the $ 16 billion gap will allow ACT Accelerator:
- COVID-19 vaccination in low-income countries, create a 600 million dose pandemic vaccine pool, support community engagement and cover the ancillary costs of donations, contributing to countries ‘ national vaccination targets towards the global target of 70% coverage in all countries by mid-2022
- Acquire 700 million tests-out of a total of 988 million in the ACT Accelerator’s global budget – and expand sequencing capacity, enabling countries to establish public health measures, implement more effective “trial and treatment” strategies, and monitor the evolution of the virus
- Obtain treatments for 120 million patients, as well as 433 million cubic meters of oxygen that include all the oxygen needs of low-income countries
- Protect 1.7 million health workers with personal protective equipment-out of a total of 2.7 million under the ACT Accelerator-as well as budget and monitor needs in real time to help identify and address bottlenecks in product deployment
- Support clinical trials of treatments and vaccines to help address variants of concern and initiate the development of widely protected coronavirus vaccines
Reactions to the launch of the initiative
The Secretary-General of the UN welcomed the launch of the initiative and stressed that, although we enter the third year of the pandemic, the world is still far from reaching crucial goals such as universal vaccination, increasing the number of tests or providing effective treatments for all those who need them.
“Inequality in vaccination is the greatest moral failure of our time, and people and countries are paying the price,” António Guterres warned.
However, he highlighted in a positive key that ” the supply and distribution of vaccines are accelerating exponentially and we are making up for lost time in many countries. The end of this pandemic may be within our reach, this year.”
The director general of the World Health Organization stressed that “the rapid spread of omicron makes it all the more urgent to ensure that tests, treatments and vaccines are distributed equitably around the world.”
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that if higher-income countries pay “their fair share “of the ACT Accelerator costs, ” this partnership can help low-and middle-income countries overcome low levels of COVID-19 vaccination, poor testing and drug shortages. Science gave us the tools to fight COVID-19; if shared globally in solidarity, we can end COVID-19 as a global health emergency this year.”
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Countries in Africa receive vaccines through the UN COVAX mechanism.
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Major achievements of the ACT Accelerator
Since it began its journey the accelerator has achieved:
- Fund research and development of new therapies, vaccines and diagnostics
- Support the market entry of new rapid tests at affordable prices
- Deliver more than one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX mechanism
- Purchase more than 200 million tests (through January 10), $ 519 million worth of medical oxygen supplies (as of January 31, 2021) and $ 764 million worth of personal protective equipment
- Encourage the creation of resources to expand the use of next-generation sequencing for genomic surveillance in southern Africa, enabling early detection of the omicron variant
* The Funding and Resource Mobilization Working Group of the ACT Facilitating Council, composed of countries from all income groups and chaired by Norway.
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