Supply Issues
With the massive spike of cases in India, the Serum Institute in India have diverted vaccines for domestic use in May 2021. Due to this, COVAX 1 facility could not deliver the vaccines intended for Africa – between February and May, Africa received 18.2 million of the 66 million expected vaccines through COVAX.
Financial Crisis
There are significant costs to delivering the vaccine which need to be considered by those countries getting the vaccine donations by COVAX. These costs include the vaccinators, training, communications and the sites in which to deliver the vaccine to the public.
The World Bank estimates this to be another 3 billion on top of the money needed to buy the vaccines.
Financial Plans
Robust financial planning is required by these countries and there is no better time to do so while there is the shortage of vaccines. This will assist COVAX, Gavi, The World Bank and other donors to provide partial funding.
In order to determine countries financial needs, they are encouraged to use the Development Costing Tool devised by COVAX.
1 COVAX – a global risk-sharing mechanism for pooled procurement and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
Sources:
World Health Organisation (WHO)
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