G7 leaders pledged on Friday 19 February to work together to “beat Covid-19” and “build back better” for the post-Covid world. A commitment was also made to “make 2021 a turning point for multilateralism and to shape a recovery that promotes the health and prosperity of our people and our planet”.
A challenge easily taken up by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who chaired the video conference dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic response and global recovery (see EUROPE 12661/3).
In this context, the participants committed to strengthening their support to the COVAX initiative, led by WHO, GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance) and CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines against Covid-19 for 92 low- and middle-income countries.
“We reaffirm our support for all pillars of the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), its COVAX facility, and affordable and equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, reflecting the role of extensive immunisation as a global public good”, the final declaration states.
An additional US$4 billion was pledged to ACT-A and COVAX, bringing the collective G7 support to US$7.5 billion.
Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU was doubling its contribution to COVAX to €1 billion. “Deliveries will start soon. This is a true moment of global solidarity”, commented the President of the Commission.
In addition, the EU has pledged €100 million in humanitarian assistance to support the rollout of vaccination campaigns in Africa, which are spearheaded by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). This amount will be subject to the agreement of the budgetary authority (European Parliament and EU Council).
Boris Johnson had already pledged that his country would provide surplus vaccines to COVAX to support developing countries.
At the EU level, “discussions are progressing with Member States and suppliers” to implement the sharing of vaccines proposed by the European Commission, within the framework of a European mechanism and via COVAX, a Commission spokeswoman said on Friday.
Asked about French President Emmanuel Macron’s idea, as reported in the Financial Times, of sharing 3% to 5% of EU and US vaccines for rapid delivery to Africa, she said that sharing a percentage of vaccines “is one of the ideas put forward by the Commission. But it’s up to the Member States to see what they want to do, on a voluntary basis”.
The EIB, which has already mobilised €400 million in loans as of December 2020 (see EUROPE 12624/38), “stands ready to provide additional backing for COVAX and to increase the €500 million aid that ‘Team Europe’ signed two months ago”, according to the President of the EIB, Werner Hoyer.
The NGO ONE published an analysis on Friday showing that the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States have already obtained a total of more than 3 billion doses of approved vaccines, nearly a billion more than the 2.06 billion needed to administer two doses to their entire population. To date, the rest of the world has only been able to obtain 2.5 billion doses and 130 countries have not received a single dose.
On pandemic preparedness, the G7 leaders intend to work with the WHO, the G20 and others to strengthen the global health architecture by reinforcing the ‘One Health’ approach and universal health coverage. The potential value of a global treaty on health, proposed by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, will be explored.
See the final declaration of the G7 leaders: http://bit.ly/3uhu5OK (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)