Bill Gates' Gates foundation pledges additional $250 million for battle against COVID-19

In order to ensure that everyone receives the vaccine, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to contribute an additional amount of  $250 million. Recently, the foundation contributed another $70 million to their fund which aims to support the development and distribution of vaccines and treatments against the COVID-19. This brings the total amount to $1.75 billion.

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Contribution to battle the pandemic 

In a statement, which was released earlier, the additional $50 million would go to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) led by the GAVI vaccine alliance. While another $20 million would be credited to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) which was currently co-funding development of several COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

“COVID-19 anywhere is COVID-19 everywhere. That is why we have to ensure that everyone gets equal access to tests, drugs, and vaccines when they are available—no matter where you live in the world. Our pledge today, alongside the generous commitments made by France, the European Commission, and Spain, means we are getting closer to having the resources needed to help the world fight this virus. But we still have a long way to go," said Melinda Gates making the announcement. 

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Meanwhile, Mark Suzman, the CEO of the foundation has asserted that a very large portion of COVID-19 vaccines were likely to be manufactured in India through the country's strong and robust private sector partners. In an interview to PTI, Suzman noted that India was doing everything it could right now with the resources at hand to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

 "I think India is doing everything it can right now with the resources at hand, but we are all hopeful that next year as some of these vaccines should come out...and our expectation is that a very large portion of these are likely to be manufactured in India through the strong and robust Indian private sector partners and then that will be the key area to focus on in the next phase of the COVID pandemic,” he was quoted as saying by PTI. 

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(Image Credits: PTI)