CANBERRA, Aug 26, 2020 (BSS/XINHUA) – The Australian government has pledged funding to a global effort to ensure that poorer countries have cheap access to a COVID-19 vaccine.
Marise Payne, minister for Foreign Affairs, and Greg Hunt, the Minister for Health, on Wednesday announced that Australia has committed 80 million Australian dollars (57.6 million U.S. dollars) to the COVAX AMC, an initiative coordinated by international vaccine alliance GAVI.
The initiative has been designed to ensure that pharmaceutical companies supply developing nations with affordable doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Several countries including Britain, Canada and Italy have already made commitments to the initiative.
Payne and Hunt said that Australia wanted to ensure that a vaccine was “safe, effective and affordable” around the world.
“By supporting the COVAX AMC, Australia will help secure COVID-19 vaccines for Pacific Island and South-East Asian countries,” they said in a joint statement.
“The AMC will address the acute phase of the pandemic, providing doses for up to 20 percent of countries’ populations in its first phase, ensuring that healthcare workers and vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, have access.”
The Australian government has previously made the case that a vaccine for COVID-19 will be key to ensuring the Pacific’s economic recovery from the pandemic.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier in August promised that if the vaccine is developed by Australians it will be shared with the world and called for fellow world leaders to make the same commitment.
“Australia is positioning itself well to take advantage and be in a position to be able to manufacture and supply vaccines should they be developed,” he said.
“Any country that were to find this vaccine and not make it available around the world, without restraint, I think would be judged terribly by history and that’s certainly Australia’s view.”