WORLD: G7 leaders commit US$7.5bn to COVAX facility

SOURCE: BBC — G7 leaders have pledged to intensify co-operation on Covid-19 and increase their contribution to the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative.

In a joint statement released after a virtual summit on Friday, G7 leaders raised their overall commitment to US$7.5bn (£5.3bn).

Wealthy countries are facing growing pressure to make sure lower-income nations get fair access to vaccines.

President Joe Biden has pledged US$4bn in aid to the fund.

An initial US$2bn will be donated in 2021, with an additional US$2bn coming over the next two years.

Germany pledged an additional US$1.2bn with Chancellor Angela Merkel telling journalists: “I stressed in my intervention that the pandemic is not over until all people in the world have been vaccinated.”

Covax is co-led by Gavi, known as the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday he was grateful for the new commitments but emphasised that more was needed to address the world’s vaccination imbalance.

“Vaccine equity is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do,” he said at the annual Munich Security Conference, also held virtually on Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron is among world leaders calling for further action to address the world’s vaccine imbalance – saying Europe and the US should urgently send up to five per cent of their supplies to developing nations.

The new commitments come days after UN Secretary General António Guterres criticised the distribution of vaccines so far as “wildly uneven and unfair”.

He said just ten countries had administered 75 per cent of all vaccinations worldwide, while 130 countries had not yet received a single dose.