Covid Vaccination: WB to finance extra jabs for poorer nations
A new World Bank financing mechanism will allow developing countries to purchase Covid-19 vaccines collectively through the Covax facility, it was announced Monday.
Covax was set up to ensure 92 developing territories could access coronavirus vaccines to fight the pandemic, with the cost covered by donors.
The new mechanism will allow those countries to buy additional doses on top of the subsidised ones they will already receive via Covax.
Using money from the World Bank and other development banks, the facility says it will make advanced purchases from vaccine manufacturers based on aggregated demand across countries.
The financing mechanism builds on the existing Covax cost-sharing arrangement which aims to provide 430 million additional doses, or enough doses to fully vaccinate 250 million people, for delivery between late 2021 and mid-2022 for the 92 countries.
Those doses could be purchased through new financing arrangement. Countries should also have some flexibility in selecting to buy particular vaccines that align with their preferences.
Covax is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
The financing mechanism "will allow Covax to unlock additional doses for low- and middle-income countries" Gavi chief executive Seth Berkley said in a statement.
"As we move beyond initial targets and work to support countries' efforts to protect increasingly large portions of their populations, World Bank financing will help us advance further towards our goal of bringing Covid-19 under control," he said.
INDONESIA LOGS RECORD DEATHS
The coronavirus has killed at least 4,169,966 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP yesterday.
Indonesia reported a record 2,069 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours yesterday as the Southeast Asian nation faces its deadliest Covid-19 surge since the pandemic began.
Yesterday's grim tally was nearly 600 deaths higher than the previous day and topped last week's daily record 1,566 deaths, the health ministry said. New infections also shot up to just over 45,000, from about 28,000 on Monday.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said yesterday that 70 percent of adults in the bloc have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Overall, 57 percent of over-18s are now fully vaccinated across the 27 nations, she said in a statement.
"These figures put Europe among the world leaders," von der Leyen said. "But we need to keep up the effort."
US KEEPS TRAVEL CURBS
In US, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and State Department on Monday both warned against travel to Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan because of a rising number of Covid-19 cases in those countries.
The CDC raised its travel advisory to "Level Four: Very High" for those countries telling Americans they should avoid travel there, while the State Department issued "Do Not Travel" advisories.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for caution yesterday after Britain registered nearly a week of lower case numbers, a decline that has surprised officials and experts.
Recorded infection rates across the UK have dropped for six consecutive days, with 24,950 new cases announced Monday compared to 46,558 last Tuesday -- a fall of 46 percent.
Iran recorded nearly 35,000 new cases yesterday, the health ministry announced, amounting to the Islamic republic's highest daily infections number for a second consecutive day.
Melbourne's lockdown was set to be lifted late yesterday, as authorities signalled a Delta variant outbreak in Australia's second-biggest city had been contained.
Neighbouring South Australia state will also ease stay-at-home rules, but the country's largest city Sydney was facing a likely extension to a lockdown now in its fifth week.
India will meet its target of supplying more than half a billion vaccine doses to states by the end of this month, the health ministry said yesterday, but added not all doses may be administered by then.
The government told the country's highest court last month that 516 million doses would be made available by end-July, an important milestone for its goal of inoculating all of India's estimated adult population of 944 million this year.
Olympics host city Tokyo is requesting hospitals to prepare more beds for Covid-19 patients as the Japanese capital grapples with spreading infection, broadcaster TBS said yesterday.
Meanwhile, schools closed due to the pandemic must reopen as soon as possible, the United Nations insisted yesterday, estimating that the education of more than 600 million children was at stake.
"This cannot go on," James Elder, spokesman for the UN Children's Fund (Unicef), told reporters in Geneva.
While acknowledging the difficult choices that governments have to make when facing the Covid-19 crisis and the possible spread of the disease, "schools should be the last to close and the first to reopen," he said, calling it a "terrible mistake" to reopen bars and pubs before schools.
"Reopening schools cannot wait for all teachers and students to be vaccinated," he added, calling on governments to protect their education budgets despite the economic hardship caused by the pandemic.
Comments