Returning the goodwill: Philippines donating $1 million to covax Facility

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will donate $1 million to the COVAX Facility, the global initiative that provides low-income countries access to COVID-19 vaccines.

President Duterte said COVAX is one of the earliest initiatives to assist the Philippines during the pandemic and has helped the government in its goal to vaccinate Filipinos.

“Now they are lacking funds, maybe because they are helping other nations all over the world. As a beneficiary of the generosity of COVAX and their desire also to help people, we will answer their pleadings of donation,” Duterte said during a meeting of the government’s pandemic task force on Monday. “The Philippines is giving $1 million. It’s our turn to return the goodwill that they have shown.”

The amount is equivalent to more than P47 million.

COVAX has delivered more than 70 million doses to 126 countries and economies around the world since February, according to a joint statement by the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund, Gavi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The facility is seeking donations as it expects a shortfall of 190 million vaccine doses by the end of June because of a surge in COVID-19 infections in India.

A total of $150 million was pledged on May 21. The advance market commitment, the mechanism through which COVAX provides vaccines to low-income countries, has secured 1.3 billion doses for delivery this year. The initiative needs $2 billion more to buy more pandemic jabs.

Last Monday, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. reported that the COVAX Facility delivered 2,030,400 doses of AstraZeneca and 193,050 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech jabs last month.

Galvez said 2.2 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech jabs acquired through the facility are expected to arrive this month.

Pandemic treaty

The head of WHO called on Monday for launching negotiations this year on an international treaty to boost pandemic preparedness, as part of sweeping reforms envisioned by member states.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, told its annual ministerial assembly that the UN agency faced a “serious challenge” to maintain its COVID-19 response at the current level and required sustainable and flexible funding.

Earlier in the day – the last of the week-long assembly – health ministers agreed to study recommendations for ambitious reforms made by independent experts to strengthen the capacity of both the WHO and countries to contain new viruses.

The ministers from the WHO’s 194 member-states are to meet from Nov. 29 to decide whether to launch negotiations on the pandemic treaty.

“The one recommendation that I believe will do most to strengthen both WHO and global health security is the recommendation for a treaty on pandemic preparedness and response,” Tedros said. “This is an idea whose time has come.”

It could be a long road ahead if such a treaty is to be reached. The WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – the world’s first public health treaty – was clinched in 2003 after four years of negotiations.

The WHO, which has been at the heart of the world’s sluggish response to the COVID-19 pandemic, faces a potential shake up to prevent future outbreaks.

Under the resolution submitted by the European Union and adopted by consensus, member-states are to be firmly in the driver’s seat of the reforms through a year-long process.

“It is essential that we strengthen global (disease) surveillance and provide the organization with the authority and the capacity to do this important job for all the peoples of the world,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the talks.

“If we are to deliver on this ambitious reform agenda, then we must work together and put other issues aside,” he said.

The virus has infected more than 170 million people and killed nearly 3.7 million since emerging in China in late 2019, according to a Reuters tally of official national figures.

WHO’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, welcomed the decisions, saying, “Right now the pathogens have the upper hand, they are emerging more frequently and often silently in a planet that is out of balance.

“We need to turn that very thing that has exposed us in this pandemic, our interconnectedness, we need to turn that into a strength,” he said.

Chile’s ambassador Frank Tressler Zamorano said on behalf of 60 countries that a pandemic treaty would help “heed the call by so many experts to reset the system.”