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Foreign Minister Maas on the global fight against COVID‑19
Foreign Minster Maas issued the following statement today (19 February) on the German Government’s contribution to the ACT‑Accelerator in the fight against the COVID‑19 pandemic:
We will only be safe when all of us are safe: there can therefore only be global responses to global crises such as the COVID‑19 pandemic. For that reason, the German Government has opted for a joint multilateral approach, namely that of the ACT‑Accelerator coordinated by the World Health Organization. It is the best way to ensure fair and equitable global access to vaccines and other key instruments to combat the pandemic. The German Government is now making available an additional 1.5 billion euro for this platform. The Federal Foreign Office will provide 110 million euro of that sum. The largest share is to be made available for vaccines for people caught up in humanitarian crises whose own governments cannot help them. We are providing 10 million euro to support the World Health Organization’s Response Fund, which it can deploy flexibly at short notice.
Background information:
Germany is a founding member of the ACT‑Accelerator and made 600 million euro available in 2020. As well as supporting the provision and distribution of drugs and diagnostic tests through its COVAX vaccine pillar, the ACT‑Accelerator also funds the research, development and acquisition of vaccines. In view of limited production capacities worldwide, COVAX secures contingents for newly industrialised and developing countries in particular. Industrialised countries can also take part to secure their own supplies. You can find a complete list of the participating countries here.
The aim of COVAX is to acquire and distribute at least 2 billion vaccine doses in 2021, in order to vaccinate the 20% of the global population which have priority (healthcare professionals, risk groups) by the end of 2021. Of Germany’s additional contribution of 1.5 billion euro for the ACT‑Accelerator, around 1.21 billion will go to the COVAX vaccine pillar.