146 economies benefits, 2.7m deaths averted in lower-income countries
COVAX, the multilateral mechanism for equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines, launched in 2020, will draw to a close on December 31, 2023.
Jointly led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), COVAX, in a statement, yesterday, said it has so far supplied nearly two billion COVID-19 vaccine doses and safe injection devices to 146 economies.
Its efforts are estimated to have helped to avert the deaths of about 2.7 million people in the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) low and lower middle income participating economies (lower-income economies) that received free doses through the mechanism, alongside nearly $2 billion in critical support to turn vaccines into vaccinations.
These 92 lower-income economies that were eligible to participate in the programme with support from the financing mechanism, known as Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC), will continue to have the option to receive COVID-19 vaccine doses and delivery support through Gavi’s regular programmes.
So far, 58 lower-income economies have requested a total of 83 million doses in 2024, with plans to focus on the continued protection of priority groups, including health care workers, community workers and older adults.
Drawing on the lessons of the H1N1 pandemic, when the majority of countries missed out on vaccines, COVAX partners advocated from the earliest stages of the COVID-19 emergency that “no one is safe until everyone is safe.” He urged the world to place vaccine equity at the heart of the global response, and called for every country to have, at least, enough doses to protect those most at risk.
By the end of 2020, 190 economies of all income levels had signed agreements to participate in COVAX, making it one of the most significant multilateral partnerships of the 21st century. By November 2020, it had raised US$ 2 billion towards vaccine procurement; and in January 2021, 39 days after the first vaccine administration in a high-income country, the first COVAX-supplied doses were administered in a lower-income country.
