Nations must fund WHO’s vaccine plan

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said yesterday it is time for countries to start using money from their national Covid-19 recovery and response plans to help fund the World Health Organization's global vaccine plan.

The Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator programme and its Covax facility has so far received $3 billion, but needs another $35 billion. It aims to deliver two billion doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of next year, 245 million treatments and 500 million tests.

"The ACT-Accelerator provides the only safe and certain way to re-open the global economy as quickly as possible. A national vaccine effort in a handful of countries will not unlock the doors to the global economy and restore livelihoods," Guterres told a high-level virtual UN event.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 167 countries have joined Covax global vaccines facility, representing 70% of the world's population.

Guterres said the programme needed an immediate injection of $15 billion to "avoid losing the window of opportunity" for advance purchase and production, to build stocks in parallel with licensing, boost research, and help countries prepare.

Guterres called on all countries to step up significantly in the next three months.