Africa to support health and economic recovery. Our Board authorized $12 billion for the vaccination efforts,” Malpass said. “As of today there have been 38 African countries that have requested support on vaccination efforts[…] And so, this effort is moving along fast from the World Bank standpoint, providing financing for countries to both purchase vaccines or receive vaccines from other intermediaries, and, importantly, to distribute those vaccines to people within their countries.”
He further noted that despite growing efforts to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, the supply has been limited while delays are deepening. Therefore, the World Bank chief urged countries that have excess vaccine supplies to release their excess for developing nations which have delivery programmes in place. “[…] one of the big gaps is in knowing who has excess vaccines, which manufacturers have deliveries available, and which countries have programs that are ready to actually put shots, put jabs in people’s arms,” he noted.
Therefore, in response to these drawbacks, the World Bank has launched a comprehensive online portal which provides easy access to information on how the vaccination programmes are set up in each of the operations approved by the international financial institution to support vaccine rollout in 22 countries. According to Malpass, this online portal is “the critical path in the vaccination effort for the countries that have excess vaccines to free up their options, their control, their export limitations”, so that these vaccines could be made available to developing nations which have transparent programmes.
During the media roundtable, the World Bank president also discussed…
