The Gavi COVID-19 Vaccines Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC) was created to make sure that all high-risk and vulnerable people in all countries get rapid, fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, regardless of income level. Launched on 4 June 2020 at the Global Vaccine Summit, the Gavi COVAX AMC is the innovative financing instrument of the COVAX Facility. It supports the participation of 92 lower-income economies in the COVAX Facility – enabling access to donor-funded doses of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines.

“624,000 #COVID19 vaccine does arrived in Angola of Angola this afternoon. Frontline health workers &vulnerable groups at high risk of COVID-19 will be prioritized. Each new delivery marks one more step towards defeating this pandemic!” WHO African Region

WHAT IS THE GAVI COVAX AMC?

At the Global Vaccine Summit on June 4, Gavi launched the COVID-19 Vaccines Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC) as the first building block of the COVAX Facility. The Gavi COVAX AMC is the innovative financing instrument that will support the participation of 92 low- and middle-income economies in the COVAX Facility – enabling access to donor-funded doses of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. The AMC, combined with additional support for country readiness and delivery, will make sure the most vulnerable in all countries can be protected in the short term, regardless of income level.

”Aterragem! 624,000 doses of #COVAX vaccines landed in #Angola🇦🇴 today. Over 5.7m doses of #COVID19vaccines have been delivered to #Africa so far!” Unicef

With more than 180 countries and economies now involved in the COVAX Facility, the world recognizes that our best hope of ending the acute phase of this pandemic and the only truly global solution is COVAX. It is also the only way to ensure that people in all countries get rapid, fair and equitable access once safe and effective vaccines become licensed. It also is trying to maximise the probability of success by having the largest and most diverse portfolio of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. The initial aim is to have 2 billion doses available by the end of 2021 – half of which will go to lower-income countries – which should be enough to protect high-risk and vulnerable people, including frontline health and social care workers, across the world.

The COVAX AMC’s role is to leverage the scale assured by the participation of higher-income economies to ensure that lower-income ones are also able to participate. What is so unique about it, is that these doses will be made available to people in all participating economies – rich or poor – at the same time, with almost 1 billion of these doses made available to people in the 92 lower-income countries through donor contributions to the COVAX AMC. Never before has a life-saving health intervention against such an immediate global health threat been made available to people in the Global North and South simultaneously at such speed. When the moment comes, this will be the single largest and most rapid global vaccine deployment we have ever seen.

Since frontline health and social care workers are not just at risk of being infected but also pose a higher risk of transmitting the virus, it recommends they are initially prioritized. With demand for COVID-19 vaccines likely to outstrip supply, at least initially, it estimates that if COVID-19 vaccines are equally distributed to countries and territories until all have enough to protect at least 3% of their population in the first half of 2021, this should be sufficient to protect every health and social care worker on the planet. Then as availability increases through 2021 and beyond, distribution should continue equally until all countries have enough to protect at least 20% of their population, which should cover all high-risk groups prioritized in most countries and territories. The only exception is those countries and territories that have opted to receive fewer doses than the amount required to cover 20% of their population.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest challenge of our time, and the COVAX Facility and the COVAX AMC are the only solutions to bring to a swift end to this crisis. COVAX is the biggest multilateral effort since the Paris climate agreement and the world’s best hope of ending the pandemic, because it is the only way to protect people in all corners of the world from COVID-19, and ensure that we achieve one world, protected.