Mr. President, the International Vaccine Institute fully endorses the proposed targets of the Global COVID-19 Summit. Vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by UNGA 2022, expanding the world’s vaccine manufacturing capacity, taking action to save lives now, and building back better health security leadership are vital steps we must take to secure a safer future for all.
IVI is the world’s only international organization dedicated to the discovery, development, and delivery of vaccines for global health. For the last 24 years, IVI has mobilized international cooperation between the public and private sectors to make available safe, effective, and affordable vaccines to protect millions of lives in low- and middle-income countries while building sustainable solutions against poverty-associated and emerging infectious diseases.
Ending the COVID-19 pandemic efficiently and equitably requires global immunity. To vaccinate 70% of the world’s population by fall 2022, we need an empowered, accountable Global Health leadership that has been given the funding, the tools, and the personnel to enable, execute and inspire the multilateral, collaborative action needed to advance licensure, tech transfer, and manufacturing of the current, and the next, generation of covid-19 vaccines.
To meet these goals, IVI is partnering with over 2 dozen organizations, from the laboratory through and beyond licensure, to move multiple COVID-19 vaccine candidates from testing to impact providing the kind of evidence that will inform better policy decisions on the use of vaccines and non-pharmacologic interventions.
Beyond the studies, we need to ensure that countries around the world are able to bridge the diagnosis and sequencing gap, so that we are no longer blind to the threats posed by outbreaks and variants outside of high income countries. We need to reinforce the ability of countries everywhere to appropriately deliver COVID-19 vaccines when these become available, and to record their use, monitor their safety, and establish their effectiveness. We at IVI, are committed to work with partners to ensure that we build back equitably, accessibly, and better.
Mr. President, IVI is committed to working alongside the Global Health Threats Council, the United States, and the international community to end the pandemic and save lives. Vaccinate the World has been the driving force behind IVI’s work since our founding in 1997, and it will continue to inform and inspire our research and partnerships until we’ve achieved our vision of a world free of suffering from infectious diseases.
