The Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), MedAccess and the Open Society Foundations have come together to help countries access additional COVID-19 vaccine doses, by creating a risk-sharing facility agreement.
To date, COVAX has delivered more than 1.4 billion COVID-19 vaccines to 145 countries and territories.
The $200m loss-sharing agreement is designed to allow countries to protect more of their population while supporting COVAX’s ambitions to make COVID-19 vaccine procurement more sustainable and suited to specific country needs.
The 2022 Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) Summit on 8 April 2022 aims to raise at least $5.2bn in urgent financial support for COVAX. Around $1bn of the $5.2bn is expected to come from cost-sharing.
The AMC provides free COVID-19 vaccines to 92 of the world’s lowest-income countries, supporting goals set out in their national vaccination strategies.
“Innovative financing solutions are crucial to the success of global vaccination in 2022,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “Our partnership with MedAccess, thanks to the support of the Open Society Foundations, will allow countries to access additional resources through COVAX cost-sharing, helping them to meet the goals set out in their national vaccination strategies and respond to uncertainty and risks such as new variants.”
MedAccess will account for a $100m procurement guarantee to allow COVAX to order more doses from manufacturers on behalf of AMC countries involved in cost-sharing. By purchasing through COVAX, countries benefit from lower prices per dose negotiated for a range of COVID-19 vaccines.
A further procurement guarantee of up to $100m will be provided by The Open Society Foundations alongside MedAccess, via the Soros Economic Development Fund. This will help COVAX to answer urgent requests from countries for additional doses, in case of a future demand spike.
“COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on health and financial systems in every country,” said MedAccess CEO Michael Anderson. “Donors have stepped up with huge sums of money to drive COVAX’s initial dose allocations but innovative finance can unlock even greater value. Our support for Gavi will enable COVAX to work with countries to speed up access to these essential vaccines and put their programmes on a more sustainable footing.”
The COVAX Cost-Sharing Mechanism was established in July 2021 in collaboration with Gavi, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The European Investment Bank has since joined and committed €300m in financing for countries in need of additional doses.