Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-Accelerator) has published its consolidated investment case, alongside the costed plans of the member organizations. The ACT-Accelerator brings together governments, health organizations, scientists, businesses, civil society, and philanthropists who have joined forces to speed up an end to the pandemic.
The ACT-Accelerator was launched at the end of April 2020 at an event co-hosted by the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), the President of France, the President of the European Commission, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It has four areas of work: diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and the health system connector.
Since the ACT-Accelerator was launched, the partner organizations have moved fast to develop costed and implementable plans designed to contribute to the end of the pandemic through the accelerated development, equitable allocation, and scaled up delivery of new tools to reduce rapidly mortality and severe disease, protecting health systems and restoring full societal and economic activity globally in the near term, and facilitating high-level control of COVID-19 disease in the medium term.
The ACT-Accelerator’s investment case and the plans published by the organizations leading each of the ‘pillars’ show a path to the accelerated development, equitable allocation, and scaled up delivery of 500 million diagnostic tests to LMIC’s by mid-2021, 245 million courses of treatments to LMICs by mid-2021, and two billion vaccine doses, of which 50% will go to LMICs by the end of 2021.
To achieve this, the costed plans presented today call for US $31.3 billion in funding for diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, of which US $3.4 billion has so far been pledged. An additional US $27.9 billion is therefore needed, including US $13.7 billion to cover immediate needs (i.e. US $17.1 billion is immediately required, of which US $3.4 billion has been pledged).
The investment required is significant, but it pales in significance when compared to the cost of COVID-19: the total cost of the ACT-Accelerator's work is less than a tenth of what the IMF estimates the global economy is losing every month due to the pandemic. Approximately 468,000 thousand people have already lost their lives.
The tools developed will benefit the whole world; the ACT-Accelerator pillars will also buy and deliver tools to ensure that LMIC’s have access.
The vaccine pillar combines CEPI’s leadership in vaccine development and investment in manufacturing with GAVI’s track record in revolutionizing access and delivery, and WHO’s oversight of regulation, policy and allocation. Its role is to ensure that vaccines are developed as rapidly as possible, manufactured at the right volumes without compromising on safety and delivered to those that need them most.
The current estimate to deliver 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, assuming a safe and effective vaccine is developed in the near future, is up to US $18.1 billion. In addition, 950 million doses will need to be procured by self-financing high-income countries and upper middle-income countries through the COVAX Facility. These numbers will become clearer once we get a better idea of, among other factors, the technology that the successful vaccine candidates will be based on and the number of doses required to protect people from COVID-19.
The health systems connector is the fourth pillar of the ACT-Accelerator and supports the other three by ensuring that health systems and local community networks can fully utilize these and other essential tools in their battle against COVID-19. This pillar is led by the World Bank and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) and supported by the WHO. It aims to build capacity – such as laboratory capacity, training for laboratory and health staff and management of protective equipment for health workers – needed to deploy the new tools effectively when they are ready. It also works on system innovations to complement the rollout of products, such as contact tracing, social distancing and isolation approaches as well as community engagement needed to sustain them. Global health security and the fight against COVID-19 depends on shoring up health systems around the world, now.
Since its launch, many governments and companies have signaled commitment to the ACT-Accelerator and made financial pledges. To date, contributing countries have committed a total US $3.4 billion. The funding gap is US $ 27.9 billion.
On June 27, the Global Goal: Unite for Our Future, campaign, concert & summit will be calling on citizens to tackle global injustices by using our collective voice to drive change for everyone, everywhere. World leaders, corporations and philanthropists will announce new commitments to help develop equitable distribution of COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines, as well as rebuild communities devastated by the pandemic. Unite with Global Citizen, the European Commission, top artists and global leaders to end COVID-19, build equity for all and fight for the world we want.
