Nearly $1 billion has been contributed by countries at the UN high-level event held earlier on Wednesday to strengthen the coordinated global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and stress the need to have vaccine available to all, United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a press briefing
UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st October, 2020) Nearly $1 billion has been contributed by countries at the UN high-level event held earlier on Wednesday to strengthen the coordinated global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and stress the need to have vaccine available to all, United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a press briefing.
"Nearly a billion dollars in new financing has been committed to the initiative [COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator], which is really the most comprehensive multilateral end-to-end solution for the pandemic," Dujarric said.
The largest contributions, he added, were made by the United Kingdom, which gave $732 million to support the initiative and aid vulnerable countries, Canada with $332 million and Germany with about $117 million in funding.
Sweden also made a commitment to provide $10 million to the COVAX vaccine facility.
The World Bank this week announced plans to contribute $12 billion to help developing countries to purchase COVID-19 vaccines once they are available.
The ACT-Accelerator, launched by the World Health Organization, European Commission, France and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation back in April, requires an additional $35 billion to be able to produce 2 billion vaccine doses, 245 million treatments and 500 million tests, according to a UN press release issued later on the subject.
At the earliest convenience, the ACT-Accelerator requires $15 billion to support research, development, manufacturing, procurement and delivery mechanisms by the end of 2020.
The COVAX facility is co-led by the Gavi vaccine alliance, the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. It is part of the ACT-Accelerator under to bring together vaccine developers from different countries in a common quest for a safe COVID-19 vaccine.
