Over 100 economies in 42 days were covered after the first international delivery: COVAX Updates

Over a hundred economies have already received COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX which is the global mechanism for equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. The milestone has been achieved after 42 days since the first ever global COVAX doses were shipped and delivered to Ghana on February 24, 2021.

Over 38 million doses across six continents has been supplied by three manufacturers, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and the SII has been delivered which altogether have reached 100 economies out of which 61 were among the 92 lower-income economies which were funded through the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment.

With the limited supply and availability in March and April, scaling and optimizing of production processes in the early phase of the rollout, and an increased demand for COVID-19 vaccines in several countries – COVAX is planning to deliver doses to all taking part economies that have enrolled themselves for vaccines in the first half of the year.

This will be considered a significant milestone in the fight against the rapid spread of COVID-19 variants. Global access to these vaccines is important to reduce the disease and to slow down the viral mutation to end this pandemic. Within a month and a half, the plan of getting access to COVID vaccines has started becoming a reality. Thanks to the outstanding efforts taken by the COVAX Facility, this is not the time to celebrate but to speed up. With so many variants Covid-19 variants emerging all over the world, we need to speed up the process of global vaccination rollout and in order to do this, we need the support of governments, along with other partners, to take all the necessary steps to increase supply chain and eliminate direct and indirect measures that limit fares of COVID-19 antibodies, and donation abundance vaccine batches as fast as could really be expected.”

According to its latest report, COVAX is planning to deliver at least 2 billion doses of vaccines soon this year and in order to reach this goal, the COVAX Facility will keep on expanding its portfolio further, and will report new concurrences with vaccination manufacturers at the appointed time.