Coronavirus: UN welcomes nearly $1 billion in recent pledges - to bolster access to lifesaving tests, treatments and vaccines to end COVID-19

A coalition of 16 pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed an agreement to cooperate on vaccine manufacturing and to scale up production

New commitments from governments, international organizations and the private sector support unified approach to end pandemic, backing a response of unprecedented scale, scope and speed­—through the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator­—as pandemic claims more than 1 million lives

Recent Commitments at a Glance:

United Kingdom – £571m (US$ 732m) for COVAX pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools- (ACT) Accelerator, of which up to £500m (US$ 641m) is to support low- and middle-income countries. This includes a commitment to match £1 for every US$ 4 committed by others up to £250m (US$ 321m).
Canada - CAD 440m (US$ 332m) for the COVAX pillar of the ACT-Accelerator, of which CAD 220 (US$ 166m) is to support low & middle income countries
Germany - EUR 100m (US$ 117m) for the COVAX pillar of the ACT-Accelerator, all of which is to support low and middle income countries
Sweden - US$ 10m for the COVAX pillar of the ACT-Accelerator, all of which is to support low and middle income countries
World Bank – US$ 12 billion to support developing countries to purchase COVID-19 vaccines as soon as they are available (to be ratified by their shareholders)
A coalition of 16 pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed an agreement to cooperate on vaccine manufacturing and to scale up production

The United Nations and its partners today welcomed a monumental show of solidarity as governments, private sector, civil society and international organizations committed support to the Access to COVID-19 Tools- (ACT) Accelerator initiative launched by the World Health Organization alongside international partners.

It is in every country’s national and economic self-interest to work together to massively expand access to tests and treatments, and to support a vaccine as a global public good

Today, nearly US$1 billion in new financing has been committed to the initiative - the world’s most comprehensive multilateral end-to-end solution to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.

The ACT-Accelerator, which was co-launched by the World Health Organization, European Commission, France and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation just five months ago, needs an additional US$35 billion to realize its goals of producing 2 billion vaccine doses, 245 million treatments and 500 million tests. The new commitments to the initiative are welcome and will be leveraged to catalyze further funding to continue the ACT-Accelerator’s groundbreaking work.

Most urgently, the ACT-Accelerator requires US$15 billion to support immediate capacity-building—for research and development, manufacturing, procurement and delivery systems—by the end of the year.

Convening a high-level event at the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly to urgently mobilize support for the ACT-Accelerator, Secretary-General António Guterres commended on the “extraordinary international effort to address a human crisis like no other in our lifetimes,” adding that more efforts must be made to further “deepen” the remarkable progress so far.

“It is in every country’s national and economic self-interest to work together to massively expand access to tests and treatments, and to support a vaccine as a global public good—a “people’s vaccine” available and affordable for everyone, everywhere.”

”The ACT-Accelerator—including its COVAX Facility—is the vehicle to get us there. Investing in the ACT-Accelerator will accelerate every country’s own recovery,” said Mr. Guterres who co-hosted the event with the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, South Africa’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, and the Director-General of World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations - Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.