Virtual
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: It’s great to join you from Washington D.C., early in the morning, to discuss a battle against COVID that could not be more urgent. I want to begin by applauding South Africa for the timely identification and for reporting on the Omicron variant, having heard of course Chairman Faki’s comments on that as well.
The Omicron variant clearly demonstrates, as Delta did before, that if anyone is at risk of COVID, we are all at risk, reminding us why it is so important to fulfill our commitments around the world. As vaccine campaigns began in each of our countries, the G-7 outlined commitments to support more equitable global access to vaccines.
But many of those promises have not yet been met. Dose donations have been slow to materialize, and there have been numerous reports of developed countries pushing short-expiration doses on fragile health systems in developing countries.
As goals have gone unmet, women and girls, communities of color, and the citizens of countries who are not in this room today were left behind. So, we have got to work together to end the pandemic as soon as humanly possible, and that means stepping up our joint efforts to boost vaccine production, including in partner countries; increasing vaccine donations; and fulfilling the pledges we have made to COVAX by providing high-quality, long-shelf life donations.
The United States has so far provided more than 300 million doses of vaccines to more than 110 economies, most of these in partnership with COVAX. We are now supplying 50 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech through COVAX each month as part of our commitment to donate 1.2 billion vaccine doses around the world.
To promote equitable, responsible donations, we urge G-7 partners to support the Vaccine Sharing Principles that Secretary Blinken proposed last month. By committing to working multilaterally through COVAX; donating, rather than selling our doses; and offering doses with no political strings attached, we will demonstrate our shared commitment to beating this plague back, together.
While we must all do more to combat vaccine inequity, I want to underscore an essential point here today. Getting vaccines to the tarmac of partner nations is not enough; it was never enough. But in recent weeks we have seen the acute urgency and importance of doing more to help get those doses, get those vaccines into arms. And that is why the United States has just announced, just last week, a program to end this pandemic through our Initiative for Global Vaccine Access, or what we’re calling Global VAX.
With the new funding announced this week, the United States has committed over $1.6 billion toward vaccination support over the past year. Global VAX will take this effort forward as a whole-of-government push to further enhance multilateral cooperation, and address country-specific needs as we work again to transform vaccines into vaccinations.
Since we’ve seen some countries refuse shipments for fear of expiration, this effort really does require thoughtful and transparent coordination around anticipated shipment of vaccines. And all of us can do better on that.
Critically it also requires supporting our partner nations in their distribution campaigns— this means everything from strengthening cold chains to recruiting and training health care workers to supporting information campaigns and the fight against disinformation campaigns to fight vaccine hesitancy. Resources really do translate into results, this is the good news -- In Cameroon, for example, our support helped enable a major national vaccination campaign that hit the airwaves, posted billboards, and handed out fliers, and led to a reported 100-fold increase in the rate of daily vaccinations. Still as Mr. Faki said, not enough, but it’s important to see that delta when we invest those resources.
Reaching the WHO target of vaccinating 70% of the world by September is going to require steep ambition, more than we have brought to bear so far, and a shared sense of urgency that this is an imperative—that this is a global emergency, that all of our health is at stake. If we bring this mindset, and make the necessary investments, though, we can do this. For decades, the U.S. alongside you and other allies, have worked to get everything from AIDS drugs to bed nets to antibiotics across the so-called “last mile”—and if Ebola vaccination is possible in conflict zones in Eastern Congo, no place on earth should be beyond the reach of COVID-19 vaccines.
In addition to launching Global VAX, the U.S. welcomes the Gavi board’s establishment of a high-level Steering Committee to coordinate support for global vaccine delivery and create a collective accountability mechanism to increase transparency on country-specific vaccination efforts. This is essential and again, a recent development. This should allow donors to avoid duplication of effort and to meet the needs as our partners battling COVID-19 themselves identify those needs.
We’re encouraged by Gavi's agreement to establish this committee and last week’s news that UNICEF, Gavi, and WHO had jointly appointed a Global Lead Coordinator to coordinate COVAX’s shots-in-arms efforts, again this is new, there was an institutional void it has now been filled by the creation of this Global Lead Coordinator on delivery.
That is why we are asking every nation here to join us in making tangible new commitments to support vaccine distribution, even as we continue to redress vaccine inequity. Just last week, Norway came forward, at the Ministerial that we chaired, with a new $220 million commitment to the ACT-Accelerator and the EU indicated that they will be increasing their commitments in the new year.
Finally, as we respond to today’s crisis, we all know we need to prevent and prepare for the threats we will face in the future. The United States seeks your support to make urgent changes to the global health security architecture that can be implemented now. We urge support for the establishment of a global health security financial intermediary fund that would be housed at the World Bank to pool additional resources for pandemic preparedness so we can break the cycle we’re in of panic and neglect - spending lots of money when a crisis hits but then letting that funding dry up after the crisis abates.
We also have to work together with partners to build their national health security capacities and to amend the existing International Health Regulations. For our part, we’re committed to working with WHO member states to improve transparency, accountability, equity, and early warning and alert systems.
Right now, COVID-19 is tragically steps ahead of us. And unless we sprint to catch up—unless we demonstrate our commitment to action to get shots into arms and to finally end this pandemic—we will not win this race against COVID-19.
Thank you so much Madam Foreign Secretary.