The United Nations reported a major milestone this week for the global Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator initiative, collecting nearly $1 billion in new financing to guarantee tests, treatment and vaccines for COVID-19.
The ACT Accelerator is a joint effort by the World Health Organization, European Commission, France, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Despite the gains, it is still short of its end goal of $35 billion. The partners agree that that figure will allow them to produce 2 billion vaccine doses, 245 million treatments, and 500 million tests. More specifically, $15 billion is needed to support immediate research and development, manufacturing, procurement, and delivery systems of year’s end.
Yet funds are pouring in from a mix of governments, private sector, civil society, and international organizations. Recent commitments have included $723 million from the United Kingdom, $332 million from Canada, $117 million from Germany, $10 million from Sweden, and $12 billion from the World Bank. Help from 16 pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will take the form of a cooperative agreement to scale up production and to manufacture vaccines.
“It is in every country’s national and economic self-interest to work together to massively expand access to tests and treatments, and to support a vaccine as a global public good—a “people’s vaccine” available and affordable for everyone, everywhere,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.
Currently, the ACT Accelerator, and the COVAX Facility, which is a part of it, have gathered 168 economies to support the largest and most diverse portfolio of vaccines globally, including nine currently under evaluation. Of these, eight are in clinical trials. Those gains come as the world recently crossed a more sobering milestone, with more than 1 million deaths now linked to COVID-19.
“I am grateful for the generous financial commitments made today, but we still have a significant funding gap to close,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said. “Fully financing the ACT Accelerator will help to control the pandemic, restore confidence, and stimulate the global recovery. Frankly, this is not a financial challenge, it’s a test of solidarity. This is a moment for saying no to nationalism and yes to our shared humanity. Because ultimately, the ACT Accelerator is not delivering merely vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics. It’s delivering something far more important—hope.”