The Vaccine Alliance Gavi announced this Monday that it will activate up to 50 million dollars (just over 43 million euros) through its First Response Fund, with the aim of accelerating access to vaccines and strengthening the response to the Ebola outbreak declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has also spread to Uganda.
According to the organization's statement, of the total amount planned, up to 40 million dollars (34.4 million euros) will be allocated to the development of specific vaccines against the Bundibugyo virus, while the remaining 10 million (8.6 million euros) will be used to cover immediate outbreak response needs and protect routine immunization services in the affected countries.
"While it will still take time to have a safe and effective vaccine against the Bundibugyo virus, we must act now to ensure that, once one or more vaccine candidates are ready, manufacturers can begin to produce doses on a large scale," highlighted Gavi's Chief Executive Officer, Sania Nishtar.
With this strategy, manufacturers of the main vaccine candidates against the Bundibugyo virus will be able to commit directly to mass manufacturing. This will allow, as soon as clinical trials show favorable results, doses of these investigational vaccines to be rapidly distributed to bolster the response to the outbreak.
In the longer term, Gavi plans to offer incentives to manufacturers to follow the most agile regulatory pathways in order to achieve inclusion in the World Health Organization's (WHO) Emergency Use Listing or Pre-qualification, two essential global authorizations to enable the rapid deployment of these vaccines in future emergency situations.
In the coming weeks, Gavi plans to finalize the design of a financial instrument that leverages the allocation of 40 million dollars to achieve these vaccine access objectives, in close coordination with CEPI, as well as with the WHO, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), and UNICEF.
The definitive model will take into account the particularities of each vaccine candidate and the needs of its producers, and could include tools such as advance purchase commitments. In parallel, work will be done to ensure that selected vaccine candidates from African manufacturers can receive accelerated support through the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA) initiative driven by Gavi.