Commitments made at the Virtual G7 leaders meeting held on Friday, and hosted by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and at the Munich Security Conference later in the day, signaled significant progress in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic with an important underscoring of the need for global equity in access to test, treatments, and vaccines.
Leaders recognised that no country can be safe until every country is safe and collectively committed over $4.3 billion to the ACT Accelerator partnership to develop and distribute effective tests, treatments, and vaccines around the world.
Contributing toward this,
The US committed initial $2 billion to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment and a further $2 billion through 2021 and 2022, of which the first $500 million will be made available when existing donor pledges are fulfilled, and initial doses are delivered to AMC countries.
Germany committed $1.8 billion with contributions to all pillars and partners of the ACT Accelerator across tests, treatments, vaccines, and health systems strengthening.
The European Commission committed $363 million for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment.
Japan committed $79 million for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment and UNITAID.
Canada committed $59 million to the ACT Accelerator.
In addition, the European Investment Bank is providing a further $242 million in loan guarantees which will help the ACT Accelerator partnership to frontload future payments to speed up the response.
Meanwhile, the UK’s commitment to join Canada, France, Norway and the European Union in sharing its additional vaccine doses with developing countries is a vital step to increase volume of vaccines available worldwide and support rapid reduction of virus transmission amongst some of the world’s our most vulnerable and exposed populations.