Nations Back Push for Universal Access to Coronavirus Vaccines

(Bloomberg) --

Global health groups and several countries are backing an effort to ensure the equitable deployment of potential Covid-19 vaccines, seen as the key to ending the pandemic.

Norway has committed $1 billion to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, joining five other nations in supporting a push for universal access to coronavirus shots, as well as vaccination against diseases such as measles. Italy, Japan, Spain, Ireland and Finland, along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have also pledged new funds to the group.

Gavi has also proposed an arrangement aimed at giving companies an incentive to invest in manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines and making doses available at fair prices. The nonprofit, which helps vaccinate half the world's children against diseases, estimates that immunizing 20 million health-care workers and creating a vaccine stockpile to be deployed where it's needed most will initially cost about $2 billion.

“We will only defeat Covid-19 if vaccines are available to everyone, no matter where they live,” Gavi Chief Executive Officer Seth Berkley said in a statement Tuesday.

With countries around the world moving to loosen restrictions on movement and halt a virus that has sickened more than 3.5 million people, the urgency in the race for a vaccine is rising. Health advocates are concerned about richer countries monopolizing the global supply of Covid-19 vaccines if companies succeed, a scenario that played out during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

The so-called advance market commitment Gavi proposed is a tool that it has used to get Ebola and pneumococcal vaccines to people in need. The cost to secure the doses needed to meet global demand for Covid-19 shots could be as much as $25 billion, Joe Cerrell, managing director of global policy and advocacy at the Gates Foundation, told Bloomberg.

The vaccine alliance said it needs at least $7.4 billion for the 2021-25 period to protect hundreds of millions of children in lower-income countries against a number of illnesses. Italy committed 120 million euros ($130 million), while Japan will contribute another $100 million.

The new funding builds on commitments made by several other countries such as Germany. Last week, the U.K. pledged 330 million pounds ($411 million) per year to Gavi for the period.

The World Health Organization, backed by the leaders of France, Germany and other countries, last month launched a separate $8 billion drive to accelerate development of a coronavirus vaccine.