A vaccine summit hosted by Britain on Thursday raised billions of dollars to immunize children in developing countries as experts wrestled with the difficult question of how any potential vaccine against the new coronavirus might be distributed globally — and fairly.
GAVI also announced a new “advance market commitment” mechanism to enable developing countries to get any effective COVID-19 vaccine when available.
The worldwide scramble for masks and ventilators that erupted in the early stages of the outbreak — where France took over the country’s mask stocks so they could be given to first responders and others inside the country and the U.S. apparently paid off shippers to redirect ventilators to the U.S. — are not encouraging signs that there will be much global cooperation if and when a coronavirus vaccine is available.
Gates acknowledged there could be some benefit to countries that funded vital vaccine research but called for a “system of allocating doses to those most at risk, and making sure that even the countries that can’t compete financially for that access, that they’re considered — their health workers, their elderly.”
Thursday, AstraZeneca said it would provide 300 million doses of the Oxford vaccine to GAVI’s new financing mechanism to try to ensure equitable access.
