Heads of International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization has issued an extraordinary call for financing actions by government leaders to accelerate end to COVID-19 pandemic.
IMF, WB, WHO, WTO principals are calling for US$50 billion investment to generate US$9 trillion in global economic returns by 2025 and boost manufacturing capacity, supply, trade flows and the equitable distribution of diagnostics, oxygen, treatments, medical supplies and vaccines.
Call to action by this quadrilateral grouping comes at a perilous point in the pandemic and as the historic World Health Assembly concludes, G7 meetings commence, and follows the G20 Global Health Summit.
Doses need to be donated immediately to developing countries, synchronized with national vaccine deployment plans, including through COVAX, which is co-led by CEPI, Gavi and WHO, alongside key delivery partner UNICEF.
The leaders of the four agencies said governments must act without further delay or risk continued waves and explosive outbreaks of COVID-19 as well as more transmissible and deadly virus variants undermining the global recovery.
They said: “By now it has become abundantly clear there will be no broad-based recovery without an end to the health crisis. Access to vaccination is key to both.”
“At an estimated $50 billion, it will bring the pandemic to an end faster in the developing world, reduce infections and loss of lives, accelerate the economic recovery, and generate some $9 trillion in additional global output by 2025,” said the leadership.