(Reuters) – The chairman of the GAVI vaccine alliance, Jose Manuel Barroso, said on Wednesday that an additional $5.2 billion is needed to continue to deliver vaccines at scale.
Speaking at a news briefing, Barroso said it was critical to continue to keep up the pace of vaccine supply through the COVAX global vaccine-sharing programme, as more than 3 billion people in the world are yet to receive their first dose.
Last week, COVAX reached the milestone of delivering 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses.
Speaking at the same event, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said scaling up the delivery capacity of COVAX is critical to meet the U.N. agency’s target of vaccinating 70% of the population in poorer nations by mid-2022.
(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy And Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Alison Williams)
