IMF proposes USD 50 billion international vaccination plan

The International Monetary Fund has proposed a USD 50 billion international vaccination plan that may cowl not less than 40 % of the worldwide inhabitants by the top of 2021 and not less than 60 % by the primary half of 2022.
With sturdy and coordinated motion now—and with little by way of financing relative to the outsized advantages—the world can durably exit this unprecedented well being and financial disaster, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva stated in her handle to the G20 Health Summit.
“For some time, we have been warning of dangerous divergence of economic fortunes. It will only worsen as the gap widens between wealthy countries that have access to vaccines and poor countries that do not,” she stated.
IMF, she stated constructing on the work of the WHO, World Bank, Gavi, African Union, and others, have proposed targets, estimates financing necessities, and lays out pragmatic motion, which has three broad parts.
“First, vaccinating of at least 40 percent of the global population by end-2021 and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022. To do so requires additional upfront grants to COVAX, donating surplus doses and free cross-border flows of raw materials and finished vaccines,” she stated.

Second, insuring in opposition to draw back dangers corresponding to new variants which will necessitate booster pictures. This means investing in extra vaccine manufacturing capability by one billion doses, scaling up genomic surveillance and supply-chain surveillance, and contingency plans to deal with virus mutations or provide shocks.
Third, managing the interim interval the place vaccine provide is restricted with widespread testing and tracing, therapeutic and public well being measures, and, on the identical time, ramping up preparations for vaccine deployment along with any authorised dose-stretching methods.
“The proposal would cost around USD 50 billion in a combination of grants, national government resources, and concessional financing,” Georgieva stated.

“We envisage grant financing of at least USD 35 billion. G20 governments have already identified as important to address the USD 22 billion grant funding gap noted by the ACT-Accelerator,” she stated.
“Our proposal estimates this needs to be topped up by an additional USD 13 billion in grant contributions. The remainder of the overall financing plan – around USD 15 billion – could come from national governments, supported by COVID-19 concessional financing, primarily from facilities already created by multilateral development banks,” stated the IMF Managing Director.