By Haruna Gimba
World leaders met in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday at the Global Health Summit, co-hosted by the European Commission and Italy, to adopt an agenda to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, an official statement said.
The leaders will develop and endorse a Rome Declaration of principles at a time when the virus is surging and spreading uncontrollably in many parts of the world.
“With nine people losing their lives to COVID-19 every minute, and as the risk of even more transmissible and dangerous variants increases, the Global Health Summit comes at a critical juncture. The future of the pandemic is in the hands of the G20 leaders,” the statement said.
The ACT-Accelerator was launched just over a year ago in response to the G20’s call for a global mechanism to accelerate the development of tests, treatments and vaccines and to ensure their equitable distribution.
Hosted by the World Health Organisation, the ACT-Accelerator offers the only end-to-end multilateral solution to speeding up an end to the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The ACT-Accelerator welcomes the commitments made at the Global Health Summit and will work with countries to operationalise rapidly these pledges, both financial and – crucially – for over 100 million doses of scarce vaccine. Current financial commitments are reflected in the ACT Accelerator interactive funding tracker. However, a significant funding gap remains.”
Speeding up an end to the pandemic through the ACT-Accelerator would cost less than one per cent of what governments are spending on stimulus packages to treat the consequences of the pandemic.
As the economic and social costs of the pandemic continue to escalate, the case for global solidarity grows even stronger. The world now needs the G20 to ACT.
“The Rome Declaration, released at the end of the Summit, reaffirmed leaders’ support for the ACT-Accelerator and underlined the necessity to share the financial burden and close the funding gap, in order for the ACT Accelerator to fulfil its mandate for the equitable allocation and delivery of tests, treatments and vaccines to defeat the pandemic,” the group said.
Of vital importance, the group also emphasised its support for global sharing of vaccine doses approved for emergency use by the World Health Organisation and through COVAX.
Carl Bildt, Special Envoy for the ACT-Accelerator and former Prime Minister of Sweden, said: “Today’s commitments are welcome – but more action is needed now, not in weeks or months, to change the course of the pandemic.”
“While some countries have moved beyond just words, by donating vaccines and pledging to fully finance the ACT-Accelerator, further action is needed from G20 and G7 leaders if we are to stop this virus from spreading and mutating further. We all have substantial work ahead of us,” Bildt added.
The Director-General of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: “We now have an opportunity to fix the global imbalance. First, we need to close the 18.5 billion US dollar funding gap for the ACT Accelerator. Second, we need countries to donate tens of millions of doses of vaccines immediately through COVAX – which is the agreed global mechanism for distributing vaccines.”
“We welcome the generous announcements made today; in the coming weeks and months, we will need hundreds of millions more doses. We need companies to help make donations happen fast, and to give COVAX the first right of refusal on all uncommitted doses now, in 2021.
“Third, we must urgently and dramatically scale up production of all of these tools, through voluntary licensing, sharing technology and know-how, and waiving intellectual property rights.
“We are at a critical juncture. The creation of the ACT Accelerator represents a historic, forward-thinking effort based on the principles of solidarity and equity. Let’s seize the moment and finish the job we started.”
Today’s commitments come at a critical point in the pandemic. Only through concerted and rigorous testing to control virus spread, access to life-saving oxygen and dexamethasone to save lives, and vaccines to protect people – can bring this pandemic under control.
A massive disparity in access to tests, treatments and vaccines between the world’s richest and poorest countries is prolonging the pandemic in all parts of the world. Funding the work of the ACT-Accelerator now would speed up an end to the pandemic everywhere, the statement said.
