Washington, USA
Governments
around the world on Thursday pledged $8.8 billion for global vaccines alliance (Gavi)
to help immunisation programmes disrupted by coronavirus, prompting calls for
global cooperation to ensure a potential Covid-19 vaccine is available to all.
An engineer works at the Quality Control Laboratory on an experimental vaccine for the Covid-19 at the Sinovac Biotech facilities in Beijing
The online meeting beat a target to raise $7.4
million to provide vaccines at a much reduced cost to 300 million children
worldwide over the next five years.
More than 50 countries took part as well as
individuals such as billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, whose foundation
pledged $1.6 billion.
Gavi also launched a new initiative to purchase
potential Covid-19 vaccines, scale-up production and support delivery to
developing nations, which raised $567 million in seed money.
"Together, we rise to fulfil the greatest
shared endeavour of our lifetimes -- the triumph of humanity over
disease," said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted the
summit.
"Today we make the choice to unite, to
forge a path of global cooperation."
Scientists around the world are racing to
develop and test a coronavirus vaccine and United Nations Secretary General
Antonio Guterres said it must be available to everyone.
"A vaccine must be seen as a global public
good -- a people's vaccine, which a growing number of world leaders are calling
for," he said in a video message.
There needs to be "global solidarity to
ensure that every person, everywhere, has access".
The pandemic has exposed new ruptures in
international cooperation, notably with US President Donald Trump's decision to
pull out of the World Health Organization (WHO).
But Gavi chief executive Seth Berkley insisted
there must be a "global perspective".
"At the end of the day, if you have large
outbreaks of Covid anywhere in the world, it threatens the world," he
said.
The United States pledged $1.16 billion to
Gavi's fundraising drive, and Trump sent a recorded message to the conference.
"As the coronavirus has shown, there are
no borders. It doesn't discriminate," he said.
"It's mean, it's nasty. But we can all
take care of it together... we will work hard. We will work strong."
The coronavirus pandemic has infected more than
6.5 million and killed over 385,000 people since emerging in China last
December, according to an AFP tally of official sources.
If a vaccine is developed, Microsoft founder
Gates said Gavi hoped to be able to buy it for the poorest countries.
He said pharmaceutical companies had been
working together to try to secure the required production capacity.
"It's been amazing, the pharmaceutical
companies stepping up to say 'yes, even if our vaccine is not the best, we will
make our factories available'," he told BBC radio.
Stay-at-home orders have been imposed across
the world to stem the spread of coronavirus, causing huge economic disruption
and the suspension of routine immunisation programmes for preventable diseases
such as measles and polio.
The WHO, UN children's agency UNICEF and Gavi
warned last month that vaccine services were disrupted in nearly 70 countries,
affecting some 80 million children under the age of one.
Polio eradication drives were suspended in
dozens of countries, while measles vaccination campaigns were also put on hold
in 27 countries, UNICEF said.
Recent modelling from the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimated that for every coronavirus death
prevented by halting vaccination campaigns in Africa, up to 140 people could
die from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Since it was formed in 2000, Gavi says it has
helped to immunise more than 760 million children.
But Berkley warned: "These historic
advances in global health are now at risk of unravelling as COVID-19 causes
unprecedented disruption to vaccine programmes worldwide."
Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde told the
meeting that her nation had seen "how the life of a helpless child is
transformed to a better future through immunisations".
She added: "As much as a coordinated and
cooperative global response is needed to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, we should
not lose sight of the fact that the vaccine's success is strongly linked to
maintaining routine immunisation.
"Which means the need to maintain the supply chain and the immunisation infrastructure as well." - AFP
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