European leaders pledge $8 billion to speed development of COVID-19 vaccines, treatments

The leaders of four major European nations have pledged to raise $8 billion to find vaccines and treatments for coronavirus. The ‘international alliance’ consists of Norway's Erna Solberg, France's Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Giuseppe Conte and Germany's Angela Merkel. Europe is the worst affected nation by the pandemic with over 1,436,617 cases and 139,586  fatalities reported as of now.

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In a press release, the European Council said that they are supporting the earlier call by the World Health Organization and other groups to brave COVID-19. It added that they were also building on the commitment made by the G20 Leaders. The G20 nations on April 26 launched a combined international initiative to accelerate the access of health tools needed to battle coronavirus.

'Access to COVID-19 Tools'

"For this reason, we have recently launched the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, a global cooperation platform to accelerate and scale-up research, development, access and equitable distribution of the vaccine and other life-saving therapeutics and diagnostics treatments. We are determined to work together, with all those who share our commitment to international co-operation.” the press released added. 

In addition to the four aforementioned leaders, the release was also signed by Charles Michel, President of the European Council and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. The leaders asserted that aimed to raise an initial 7.5 billion euros ($8 billion) in an online pledging conference on May 4 “to make up the global funding shortfall estimated by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) and others.” They added that more funding would be required to achieve their aim of manufacturing and delivering medicines on a global scale and “to achieve universal access to vaccination, treatment and testing.”

Previously, Health Ministers of G20 acknowledged the systematic weaknesses in health systems and vulnerabilities in the global community’s ability to prevent and respond to a pandemic. According to a statement released after the virtual meeting on April 19, the G20 Health Ministers addressed the need to improve the effectiveness of global health systems by sharing knowledge and closing the gap in response capabilities and readiness.

Read: COVID-19: G20 Launches International Initiative To Accelerate Access To Health Tools

Read: G20 Health Ministers Acknowledge Systematic Weakness In Health Systems To Fight Pandemic

(Image credits: AP)