The European Parliament’s Special Committee on Covid-19 (COVI) gave the floor on Thursday 13 October to the Chief Executive Officer of GAVI - the Vaccine Alliance - the American Dr Seth Berkley. This was an opportunity to look back at what this private organisation has done to facilitate access to Covid-19 vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income countries through Covax, but above all to outline plans to vaccinate the whole world with messenger RNA vaccines, drawing on the lessons learned.
“Global health is the second pillar of our mandate”, said Kathleen Van Brempt (S&D, Dutch), Chair of the COVI Committee, considering that it is “important that Europe assumes its responsibilities in the rest of the world”.
Berkley said he is pleased that Covax has contributed to the fact that, to date, Covid-19 coverage in low- and middle-income countries is 51% for full primary immunisation, 20% in low-income countries and 58% in middle-income countries, compared to 62% globally.
Vaccines supplied by Covax, with significant support from the EU - the largest contributor - accounted for more than half of the supply and more than 80% of deliveries to the 92 least wealthy countries. “We were able to deliver 1.8 billion doses. This is a major achievement, which has taken longer than we expected”, he said.
More funding. Referring to the initial difficulties encountered, the CEO insisted that contingency financing from the outset would have helped a great deal. Vaccine donations in 2021 have turned the tide. To date, 339 million doses have been donated by the EU, its Member States and financial institutions. “The EU has supported us to the tune of €775 million to enable Covax to cover the purchase of vaccines, donations and country level delivery support”.
At the same time, routine vaccinations have declined over the past two years in developing countries.
“Despite this, we have managed to vaccinate 65 million children in 2021 and are aiming for 300 million by 2021-2025. This year, we will have vaccinated an additional 1 billion children”, said Mr Berkley.
It is really necessary to “redouble our efforts” he said, “otherwise we risk the resurgence of more common diseases in poor countries”. He expressed regret that 32% of people worldwide, and many in poor countries, are still not vaccinated against Covid-19.
For 2023, GAVI’s strategy is to continue routine and Covid-19 vaccination, increase booster injections for high-risk populations, determine the appropriateness of rolling out vaccines adapted to new variants, and work in particular on vaccines against human papillomavirus infections.
Mr Berkley announced that GAVI has an innovative new funding instrument, the ‘Pandemic Vaccine Pool’, which can provide funding. “Our board will discuss whether we should have an integrated Covid vaccine programme as part of our routine immunisation programme”.
For the rest, he called for more user-friendly and cost-effective vaccines. GAVI has a programme to consider patch technology and temperature-stable vaccines.
International cooperation. Regarding the pandemic prevention and response plan, the CEO said that GAVI: - is trying to strengthen this instrument “and perhaps transform it into a Contingent Vaccine Fund to complement the World Bank’s Intermediary Fund”; - intends to strengthen the diversification of vaccine production in Africa, while streamlining the process; - is working with the G7 under the German Presidency on how to develop a market-shaping strategy for vaccine manufacturing in Africa, which will be discussed next week at the Global Health Summit in Berlin.
Tomislov Sokol (EPP, Croatian) said he was convinced that “we must vaccinate the whole world, otherwise we will not be safe in Europe”, and Dolors Montserrat (EPP, Spanish) hailed Covax as “a true joint effort without precedent in humanity”.
Her compatriot Margarita de la Pisa Carrión (ECR) asked why AstraZeneca’s cheaper, non-EMA approved vaccine had been distributed in poor countries. Because there is nothing to stop GAVI buying a vaccine that has been prequalified at WHO and approved “by another stringent regulatory authority”, the CEO replied.
He assured Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA, French), that his organisation was negotiating “the best prices” for vaccines, “much lower than for rich countries”.
Virginie Joron (ID, French) noted that GAVI was created by Bill Gates in 1999 “to shape the vaccine market”. She expressed surprise that José Manuel Barroso, former president of the European Commission, who joined Goldman Sachs in 2016, is now a non-executive director of the GAVI board, “without having any medical knowledge”.
Mr Berkley replied that it was he, an epidemiologist, who was managing the organisation and that Mr Barroso had extensive board experience.
To Sara Cerdas (S&D, Portuguese), who put forward the idea of a targeted approach tailored to developing countries, Mr Berkley replied that it was not only developing countries that had difficulty vaccinating everyone: “In my country, 1/3 of the population is still not vaccinated at all and 2/3 have not received a booster dose”, he lamented. The challenge, he says, is to determine “whether the global community is ready to build sustained programmes across the life course. This is GAVI’s goal”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)