World Bank to Give Developing Nations a COVID Jab Purchasing Boost

By Staff, Agencies

A new World Bank financing mechanism will allow developing countries to purchase COVID-19 vaccines collectively through the Covax facility, it was announced Monday.

Covax was set up to ensure 92 developing territories could access coronavirus vaccines to fight the pandemic, with the cost covered by donors.

The new mechanism will allow those countries to buy additional doses using money from the World Bank.

"As we move beyond initial targets and work to support countries' efforts to protect increasingly large portions of their populations, World Bank financing will help us advance further towards our goal of bringing COVID-19 under control," Seth Berkley, chief executive of the Gavi vaccine alliance, said. Gavi is working on Covax along with the World Health Organization.

Vaccine inequality is a concern for rich nations as even if they vaccinate their whole populations, new variants of the virus that could develop in less vaccinated, poorer nations, are still a threat to their efforts to recover from the pandemic.

This was the case with the "Israeli" entity, which appeared to have successfully vaccinated itself out of the pandemic until the emergence of the delta variant, first detected in India.

Recently observers are paying increased attention to the lambda variant, first observed in Peru and now detected in around 700 cases in the US, according to Verywell Health.

In high-income countries 95.4 doses have been administered per 100 inhabitants, compared to 1.5 doses in the 29 lowest-income countries.

Some nations, such as the US, have encouraged countries with sufficient supply to donate surplus vaccines to other countries.