Bill and Melinda Gates pledged an additional $70 million of funding through their charitable foundation on Thursday to go toward helping to develop and distribute a vaccine and treatments for COVID-19 around the world.
The donation includes $50 million that will go to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment led by the GAVI vaccine alliance, which aims to provide access to vaccines for low-and middle-income countries. The other $20 million will go to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is co-funding the development of several COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
“We have to ensure that everyone gets equal access to tests, drugs, and vaccines when they are available — no matter where you live in the world,” Melinda Gates said in a statement. “Our pledge today … means we are getting closer to having the resources needed to help the world fight this virus.”
GAVI said COVAX has a goal to get two billion doses of coronavirus vaccines out by the end of the next year, with hopes to get half of the doses out to poorer nations.
GAVI, along with CEPI and the World Health Organization, are co-leading a global effort known as the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator to help speed up development, production, and access to coronavirus drugs, tests, and vaccines.
More than 50 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported around the world.
In the United States, the virus has infected over 10 million people and has been attributed to the death of more than 237,000. Pfizer and BioNTech announced this week that one of their vaccine candidates was found 90% effective in preventing the coronavirus and that they would seek emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
The Gates Foundation has contributed a total of $156 million to COVAX AMC and has been urging other international donors to pitch in.
