At an early stage during this pandemic, it quickly became apparent that to end this global crisis we don’t just need COVID-19 vaccines, we also need to ensure that everyone in the world has access to them. This triggered global leaders to call for a solution that would accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as diagnostics and treatments, and guarantee rapid, fair and equitable access to them for people in all countries.
That organization is called COVAX. Up until a couple of weeks ago the U.S. was not a member of COVAX, but we did join the organization on the first day of the Biden Administration. Extraordinary, don’t you think? The country with the highest GDP in the world and a leading democracy wasn’t a member?
Here’s a PowerPoint that I’ve prepared describing COVAX
Well, that changed on 1/21/21 along with the U.S. rejoining the World Health Organization. What a difference a change in leadership can make!
COVAX brings together governments, global health organizations, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, civil society and philanthropy, to provide equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. It is the only truly global solution to this pandemic because it is the only effort to ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to COVID-19 vaccines once they are available, regardless of their wealth.
For lower-income funded nations, who would otherwise be unable to afford these vaccines COVAX is the only viable way in which their citizens will get access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Last week COVAX published their first interim COVAX Global Supply Forecast. You can see that as of right now their supply of vaccine is dominated by the Johnson & Johnson candidate vaccine- which makes sense because it is most widely tested vaccine that is a single dose and it has simple storage and handling requirements.
Ninety-two low- and middle-income economies are eligible to participate in receiving vaccine through COVAX AMC… here is the list of countries authorized to receive vaccine under the program.
