Covax is an acronym for Coronavirus Vaccine Scheme, a Covid-19 vaccines programme with the objectives of establishing easy access to poorer nations across the world.
The World Health Organisation created the scheme in 2020 hoping that a fair distribution of vaccines will protect the population in 92 poorer countries by at least 20%.
It was further initiated with a global vaccine provision goal of 2 billion doses in 2021 and 1.8 billion doses to 92 low-income countries by early 2022.
With the exception of Canada as a G7 country, most COVID-19 vaccine doses from Covax are going to poorer countries.
Since sending its first Covax batch of Covid-19 vaccines out in February, over 120 countries around the world are delivering 81 million doses.
The World Health Organization (WHO) runs Covax alongside Unicef, Global Vaccine Alliance, GAVI and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
Covax also works with governments and vaccine manufacturers around the world. Its operations involve the development, purchase and delivery of vaccines to more than 180 countries.
The scheme gets support from the US, the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the UAE, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal.
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Countries that have pledged to donate COVID-19 vaccines to COVAX
Some countries have recently pledged to donate money as well as COVID-19 vaccines from their surplus yo Covax scheme.
- The US is raising its COVID-19 vaccine donations to Covax to 500m doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the previous 60 million doses it offered.
- The UK said it will provide 100m doses
- Japan is pledging $1bn (£709m)
- The EU is pledging €1 billion in loans and donations (£864m)
- Other European countries are collectively pledging €1 billion (£864m)
Pfizer and AstraZeneca doses are so far the only available vaccines through COVAX despite having six others given emergency use authorisation by the WHO.
Janssen, Sinopharm and Sinovac could be a while as Moderna is conceding 500 million doses at low prices.