The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $50 million donation to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, on Wednesday.
The pledge will help fund the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines through Gavi’s COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), as well as the distribution of these vaccines to Nigeria and 91 other low-income countries.
The announcement expands on the foundation’s prior $156 million investment to the COVAX AMC.
The foundation has now committed more than $1.8 billion to the COVID-19 response.
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The pledge was announced at Gavi’s COVAX AMC Summit, an event co-hosted by the government of Japan and Gavi that gathered world leaders, the private sector, civil society and technical partners to build support to procure COVID-19 vaccines and equitably distribute them to lower-income countries.
“The world must join together swiftly to extend equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, or we risk additional deaths and the introduction of new variations, which might extend the pandemic for everyone,” said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Today’s donations, particularly Japan’s generous pledge and leadership in global health, have helped us take a crucial step toward that goal.
This conference exemplifies what can be accomplished when we work together to manage the pandemic and save lives.”
The foundation requested high-income countries to immediately distribute at least 1 billion extra COVID-19 vaccines with low-income countries.
High-income nations have reserved more COVID-19 vaccines than they require, allowing them to contribute to a key endeavor to speed global vaccine access by providing extra doses without jeopardizing their own vaccination efforts.
This would allow low-income countries to immunize hundreds of millions of health professionals and at-risk people this year, saving lives, lowering the chance of new variations arising, and aiding in pandemic containment.
