Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO) and other aid groups on Thursday issued a $ 23.4 billion plan to bring the Covid-19 vaccine, tests and drugs to poor countries next year, appealing to the leaders of the G20 for the end This week funding.
The ambitious plan outlines the access strategy to the Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (Act-A) until September 2022 is expected to include the use of experimental oral antivirus pills made by Merck & Co to treat mild and moderate cases.
If the pill is approved by the Supervisory Authority, it costs only $ 10 per course, the plan said, in line with the DRAFT NL1N2RF1BE document was seen by Reuters earlier this month.
“The request is $ 23.4 billion.
That’s a fair amount of money, but if you compare with damage it is also done for the global economy by a pandemic, it’s not too much,” Carl Bildt, which is a special envoy for act-accelerator, told pre -Briefing for chosen journalists ahead of the press conference by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Bildt, the former Prime Minister of Sweden, acknowledged that Act-A had struggled to secure previous financing and noted that Norwegian and South Africa co-chair was an attempt to raise funds.
“So we expect a strong signal from (G20) out of the meeting in Rome for the weekend,” he said.
The same budget of $ 7 billion is intended for vaccines and diagnostic tests, with more than $ 5.9 billion to improve health systems and $ 3.5 billion for care including antivirus, corticosteroids, and medical oxygen.
Covax, ACT-A vaccine arm, has provided around 400 million Covid-19 doses to more than 140 low and medium-income countries, where the vaccination rate remains low, said Sougia Swaminathan Scientist.
“We know there are around 30 countries that depend on Covax only, they don’t have another vaccine source,” he said.
About 82 countries will likely miss Global WHO targets from vaccination coverage of 40% at the end of the year, but some of them can if supplies begin to flow, he said.
Referring to India who continued the export of the Covid-19 vaccine which was “relatively simple” this month after suspending in April because of its domestic epidemic, Swaminathan said: “I think this volume out of India will rise significantly.” He added: “One of the things now disturbs a big way is the need for booster, the more high-income countries that enter for a booster dose and this now also sucks vaccine doses.”