Virtually organized UK-led Global Vaccine Summit raises $8.8 billion

The UK hosted the Global Vaccine Summit on Thursday, bringing together government, civil society and private sector leaders in a virtual event to support Gavi, a global vaccine alliance led by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson integrated the Summit and urge nations to pledge funding for vaccinations to save millions of lives in the poorest countries and protect the world from future outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The summit aims to raise at least $7.4 billion (approx. £6 billion) for Gavi to immunize further 300 million children in the world’s poorest countries by 2025. The summit exceeded its objective of raising $7.4 billion and instead raised $8.8 billion.

Representatives from more than 62 countries, including at least 42 heads of state and government and private sector organizations and civil society leaders, come together to raise funds for this global novel course.

This important funding will not only shield children from deadly diseases like polio, diphtheria, and measles and save up to 8 million lives, but will also help ensure our global recovery from coronavirus (COVID-19).

As the world focuses on tackling coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and Gavi have warned that the pandemic is disrupting routine immunization, affecting approximately 80 million children under the age of 1 across 68 countries.

UK PM Boris Johnson stated in his opening speech that he wished the summit would be a “moment when the world comes together — uniting humanity in the fight against the disease.”

“Vaccines only realize their true power when they are deployed to protect the most vulnerable.”

World leaders pledged $8.8 billion towards immunizations and equitable vaccine access at the @Gavi Global Vaccine Summit pic.twitter.com/6Bx8o678PP

— Bloomberg QuickTake (@QuickTake) June 5, 2020

“To defeat the coronavirus, we must focus our collective ingenuity on the search for a vaccine and ensure that countries, pharmaceutical companies, and international partners — like the World Health Organization (WHO) — cooperate on a scale beyond anything we have seen before,” Jhonson said.

As the Closing speech in this summit, Johnson stated: “Just as we have…great military alliances like NATO, where countries collaborate on building their collective military defense…We now need the same spirit of collaboration and collective defense against the common enemy of disease.”

We are thrilled to announce that our goal has been achieved and surpassed! Thank you to all our incredible donors for reaching a total figure of US$ 8.8 billion! #GVS2020 pic.twitter.com/WBuiP54hXe

— Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (@gavi) June 4, 2020