Gavi sets aside $178m to stockpile Ebola vaccines
Gavi set out plans to invest $178m (€160m) through to 2025 for the development of a stockpile of 500,000 Ebola vaccines, which will be made available to selected countries.
Low- and middle-income countries will have access to the vaccines for no cost, while high-income countries will have to pay for access.
In addition to creating the emergency stockpile of vaccines, Gavi will help providing targeted, preventative vaccination for high-risk populations.
The vaccine alliance noted that there are currently eight potential Ebola virus vaccines in development.
This number features Merck’s vaccine, which was given provisional European approval and saw the company scaling up production accordingly. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine also has a vaccine going through the European regulatory process.
Further than its work on Ebola, Gavi also stated that it would pledge $11.6m to fund a malaria vaccine implementation program between 2021 and 2023.
The funding is an extension of a previous collaborative effort, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Unitaid and Gavi, which saw the three partners provide $50m to begin pilot vaccination programs from 2017 to 2020.
