Cash shortages mean Covax cannot accept new doses, says executive
The Covax vaccine initiative set up to ensure Covid-19 vaccines reach the world’s poorest people is unable to accept new dose donations because it has nearly exhausted the funds needed to buy crucial accessories including syringes, one of its leaders has warned.
Vaccine shortages have plagued many poorer countries and contributed to the uneven rollout of jabs around the world. Public health experts have repeatedly said such disparities could lead to new coronavirus variants emerging in areas where fewer people have been vaccinated.
The World Health Organization-backed programme last week said it needs a fresh cash injection of $5.2bn to support its global vaccine rollout this year.
Some donor countries do not cover certain costs associated with donations, such as safety boxes, transportation and insurance, holding back delivery to poorer nations. Richer countries are usually able to absorb those costs independently.
“We are in a position where we will not be able to accept more dose donations [that come without syringes or other accessory elements] unless we get more cash,” Seth Berkley, chief executive of the Gavi vaccine alliance that helped create Covax, told the Financial Times.
“It doesn’t mean that we’ve spent every bit of the money that we got, but a lot of the money has to be held to pay for doses that we’ve made commitments on.” When asked how much money Covax had left, Berkley said “none”.
The extra cash Covax is seeking would help cover 600m doses — including vaccines adapted to new variants — and expenses for ancillary items such as syringes.
Covax, which was set up in 2020, is targeting closure of the fund allocation in the first quarter, although Berkley said the goal was “very ambitious”. Initial pledges for the latest funding round amount to at least $192m.
Earlier this month, Covax reached its target of delivering 1bn doses after several setbacks and delays.
Covax and others, including the WHO, have criticised the lack of visibility over deliveries and short shelf-lives on donations made to poorer countries.
Berkley said there had been improvements in the underlying supply of vaccines and in distribution but added that funding was needed to sustain those efforts.
“Now countries have visibility of vaccine supply and that’s critical for them to do the planning that’s necessary,” he said.
About 86 countries continue to have vaccine coverage rates of below 40 per cent, the health body said last week.
Covax can help the lower-income nations it serves reach coverage of about 45 per cent, Berkley estimated. But he said the risk of vaccine nationalism repeating itself is high if new variant-targeted vaccines are required.
In a policy shift, the WHO last week recommended widening the use of boosters, updating its previous guidance when it backed the use of a third shot only in very limited circumstances. Officials said the supply picture for 2022 had improved significantly.