WILL CORONAVIRUS VACCINE BE AVAILABLE TO ALL? WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION RESPONDS!

The world Health Organization recently said that it needed at least US $100 billion for its programme which helps in accelerating the pace of development as well as manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine candidates and ensure that it is available to everyone. However, it has highlighted that it is not even possible for it to reach ten percent of the world with the amount collected so far. 

“There is a vast global gap between our ambition for the ACT-Accelerator and the amount of funds that have been committed. While we are grateful for those that have made contributions, we are only 10 per cent of the way to funding the billions required to realize the promise of the ACT Accelerator,” Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO said at a press conference on Monday.

“And this is only part of the global investment needed to ensure everyone everywhere can access the tools. For the vaccines alone, over US$ 100 billion will be needed. This sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But it is small in comparison to the 10 trillion dollars that have already been invested by G20 countries in fiscal stimulus to deal with the consequences of the pandemic so far,” he stated.

WHO acknowledged that several vaccines which are “safe and effective” are being prepared but they noted that the challenge is to produce the same in large amounts and make it accessible to people who need it the most.

“The challenge is going to be scaling up production and allocating those vaccines in a way that does the most good around the world and stops this virus to the greatest extent possible, paying for all that and preparing national systems to deliver this,” Mike Ryan, the head of WHO’s Health Emergency Programme, noted.

Hundreds of vaccines are being developed across the globe at the moment and almost 30 of those vaccines are in different stages of human trials.