COVAX delivers 240m vaccine doses in 6 months
World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed that the COVAX initiative has managed to deliver about 240 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to about 139 countries.
The multilateral initiative (COVAX) was formed with the aim of guaranteeing global access to life-saving COVID-19 vaccines.
In a statement, WHO said COVAX has made meaningful progress in sourcing for funds, securing and delivering the vaccines.
‘’COVAX has already achieved significant progress: more than US$10 billion has been raised; legally binding commitments for up to 4.5 billion doses of vaccine; 240 million doses have been delivered to 139 countries in just six months.
‘’Yet the global picture of access to COVID-19 vaccines is unacceptable. Only 20% of people in low- and lower-middle-income countries have received a first dose of vaccine compared to 80% in high- and upper-middle-income countries.
‘’In the critical months during which COVAX was created, signed on participants, pooled demand, and raised enough money to make advance purchases of vaccines, much of the early global supply had already been bought by wealthy nations. Today, COVAX’s ability to protect the most vulnerable people in the world continues to be hampered by export bans, the prioritisation of bilateral deals by manufacturers and countries, ongoing challenges in scaling up production by some key producers, and delays in filing for regulatory approval,’’ said the statement.
According to its latest supply forecast, COVAX expects to have access to 1.425 billion doses of vaccine in 2021, in the most likely scenario and in the absence of urgent action by producers and high-coverage countries to prioritize COVAX.
Of these doses, approximately 1.2 billion will be available for the lower-income economies participating in the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC).
This is enough to protect 20% of the population, or 40% of all adults, in all 92 AMC economies with the exception of India.
WHO also indicated that over 200 million doses will be allocated to self-financing participants.
The key COVAX milestone of two billion doses released for delivery is now expected to be reached in the first quarter of 2022.
COVAX delivers 240m vaccine doses in 6 months
