The Gavi vaccine alliance, a non-profit organization created in 2000 to provide an array of vaccines to developing countries, recently announced that Covax, the global program for distributing COVID-19 jabs to poorer countries, will soon be integrated into more routine vaccination programs.
Alongside the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Gavi has taken the lead on the Covax initiative, the global scheme that has so far shipped more than 1.86 billion COVID vaccines to 146 territories, with the focus on providing donor-funded jabs to the 92 weakest economies.
“While Covax continues to have in place plans for worst-case scenarios, the board agreed, in principle, to explore integrating future COVID-19 vaccinations into Gavi’s core programming,” it said in a statement.
This move would allow people to combine getting a COVID jab with receiving other vaccines, helping counter the backsliding in routine vaccination since the start of the pandemic. It is also hoped to help drive up demand for COVID jabs.
Despite remaining gaps in COVID vaccine coverage, the decision to phase out Covax is not unexpected, as “it is acknowledging that the acute phase (of the pandemic) seems to be fading,” Gavi head of resource mobilization Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao said, stressing that the focus was on “flexibility” and that there was enough “capacity to continue fully until 2024.”
As the world continues to withdraw from emergency mode and normalize, integrating protection from COVID and ensuring continued protection as we go about our daily lives will become more important. With international organizations already focused on vaccination are making preparations for this transition, so should governments like the Philippines, where the effort in follow up vaccinations have been lagging, not only when it comes to COVID, but with most other vaccines as well.*
