On Wednesday 10 March 2021, Luxembourg's Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Franz Fayot, had an exchange of views with Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the meeting was held via a video conference.
This meeting was an opportunity to take stock of recent developments concerning the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) vaccine distribution mechanism and in particular on the first phase of vaccine distribution in Central and West Africa, which began in February 2021. Minister Franz Fayot congratulated the Gavi alliance on this rapid deployment, particularly in Senegal and Mali, the first partner countries of Luxembourg's development cooperation programme to have benefited from it. They also discussed the role of the Luxembourg medical refrigeration company B Medical Systems, a global player in the field of cold chain in the context of vaccine distribution.
Geneva-based Gavi is a long-standing partner of Luxembourg's development cooperation programme, which last year increased its multi-year support to the Vaccine Alliance for the period 2021-25 by 25%, to the tune of €5 million.
In addition, Luxembourg has contributed €1 million to the COVAX mechanism, which is one of the three pillars of the mechanism to accelerate access to tools to fight COVID-19 (Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator), initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission and France in response to the pandemic. The COVAX initiative, which currently groups together 191 countries, is managed by Gavi and aims to guarantee equitable access to vaccines worldwide, by financing the purchase of 2 billion doses for the most vulnerable populations in 92 low- and middle-income countries, thus guaranteeing a minimum coverage of 20% of these populations until the end of 2021.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership whose mission is to make vaccines more accessible and affordable for developing countries. Luxembourg's development cooperation programme has been supporting Gavi since 2005 with flexible contributions over a five-year period.
