Ahead of the December 2020 Gavi Board Meeting, the People’s Vaccine Alliance wrote to all Board Members to outline the changes needed to the COVAX Facility.
We recognise the considerable work that has so far gone into the design of the COVAX Facility thus far. As a global mechanism, the Facility has tremendous potential to be the antidote to short-sighted vaccine nationalism. Analysis from the People’s Vaccine Alliance released last week shows rich countries have secured enough doses to vaccinate their populations three times over whilst the majority of developing nations have secured enough doses to vaccinate just one in ten of their citizens.
However, the COVAX Facility is missing an historic opportunity to reshape the market for vaccines to ensure a sustainable supply of affordable vaccines for all. Instead of prioritising strategies that expand manufacturing capacity by as many producers as possible, COVAX Facility designers are adopting a business as usual approach. This risks delays in vaccine production, artificially limits supply and most importantly, delays future COVID-19 vaccines from reaching developing countries.
The People’s Vaccine Alliance are urging the Gavi Secretariat to address these concerns with the utmost urgency, and that in particular Gavi publicly supports the WHO COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.