ACT Accelerator needs $22.1 billion in 2021; COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund $1.96 billion
ACT-Accelerator, a global coalition formed in April 2020 to fight the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic with new vaccines, tests and treatments, is facing a severe fund crunch to meet its goals for 2020-21, according to the ACT-Accelerator Prioritised Strategy and Budget for 2021.
The coalition needs additional $22.1 billion in 2021 to deliver work on delivering vaccines, tests and starting new treatment courses, according to the analysis released by the World Health Organization (WHO) March 12.
ACT-Accelerator had originally outlined $38.1 billion to fully fund its work in September 2020. It needs the additional amount specified to fund work to deliver over two billion doses of vaccines; 900 million tests and up to 100 million of new treatment courses.
Thus far, $11 billion has been committed to ACT-Accelerator from a broad coalition of public (87 per cent), private (6 per cent) and multilateral (7 per cent) donors. In February, the United States of America announced $2.5 billion, and will release an additional $1.5 billion for vaccine procurement and delivery through 2021 and 2022.
Germany contributed the most (23.9 per cent) to the contribution, followed by the United States (22.8 per cent) and United Kingdom (10.1 per cent).
Meanwhile, the WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund March 16 — on completing a year — launched a renewed call for action for funds to contribute $1.96 billion required in 2021 to respond to the new challenges in the fight against the pandemic. More than 60 per cent of this will go towards requirements for the access to COVID-19 tools, including diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.
According to Anil Soni, chief executive, the WHO Foundation:
“COVID-19 has affected all of us. Every country. Every company. Every community. It was inspiring to see the world rally behind the WHO last year in the form of hundreds of thousands of contributions to its Solidarity Response Fund. That money was put to good use and saved countless lives.This pandemic won't be over anywhere until it’s over everywhere, and donations to the Solidarity Response Fund help move the world towards that goal.”
The fund was launched as a platform to enable private companies, individuals and other organizations to contribute directly to WHO’s efforts to prevent, detect and respond to the pandemic. As many as 661,000 donors contributed nearly $250 million in 2020.
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