BRUSSELS: The European Commission said on Monday it would contribute €400 million to an initiative led by the World Health Organization to buy COVID-19 vaccines.
The initiative, dubbed COVAX, aims to purchase 2 billion doses by the end of 2021 of potential COVID-19 shots from several vaccine makers.The EU financial support will be provided through guarantees, the Commission said. A spokeswoman for the EU executive did not clarify how these guarantees would be offered and why they were preferred to direct funding in cash.
The EU Commission is negotiating advance purchases of COVID-19 vaccines with several drugmakers on behalf of the 27 EU states and has said in past weeks EU governments cannot buy vaccines through parallel procurement schemes.Asked whether its guidance to EU states not to buy vaccines through COVAX was now dropped, a commission spokeswoman declined to elaborate.
Critics have said that by buying vaccines exclusively through an EU scheme, the Commission was effectively undermining the WHO-led initiative. The Commission said it was committed to donating to developing countries some of the vaccines it buys through its procurement scheme.