Gates Foundation Expands Commitment To COVID-19 Response Efforts

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a US$150 million funding expansion for the global response to COVID-19.

The new commitment will fund the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, as well as new efforts to provide partners in Africa and South Asia with resources to scale their COVID-19 detection, treatment, and isolation efforts.

The foundation also called on world leaders to unite in a global response to COVID-19 to ensure equitable access to diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.

"It is increasingly clear that the world’s response to this pandemic will not be effective unless it is also equitable," said Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda Gates. "We have a responsibility to meet this global crisis with global solidarity. In addition to contributing to the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, these funds will support efforts against COVID-19 in low-and-middle-income countries, where local leaders and healthcare workers are doing heroic work to protect vulnerable communities and slow the spread of the disease."

The Gates Foundation noted that it will also leverage a portion of its $2.5 billion 'Strategic Investment Fund', which uses a suite of financial tools to address market failures and incentivise private enterprise to develop affordable and accessible health products.

These funds, which can include equity investments, loans, and volume guarantees, will be used to help health systems in low- and middle-income countries, LMICs, facilitate the rapid procurement of personal protective equipment for health care workers, COVID-19 diagnostics, oxygen therapeutics, and other essential medical supplies. Any financial returns generated by the Strategic Investment Fund are re-invested in Gates Foundation philanthropic programmes.

The funding announced today builds on the $100 million the foundation has committed to date to support the global response, as well as $5 million in resources to support public health agencies and frontline response organisations in the greater Seattle region.

Initial foundation funding has helped to kick-start the search for COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines; enhanced virus detection capacity in Africa; and contributed to the response in China. The foundation has also directed its programmatic technical expertise to support multilateral, national, and sub-national responses to the pandemic.

"COVID-19 doesn’t obey border laws. Even if most countries succeed in slowing the disease over the next few months, the virus could return if the pandemic remains severe enough elsewhere," said foundation co-chair Bill Gates. "The world community must understand that so long as COVID-19 is somewhere, we need to act as if it were everywhere. Beating this pandemic will require an unprecedented level of international funding and cooperation."

According to the foundation, a coordinated, international effort bringing together all sectors will be required to mobilise the billions in funding needed in the months ahead.

Institutions such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi - The Vaccine Alliance are in place to coordinate the development and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, but they require an influx of new resources to do so, the foundation added in its statement.

Other organisations such as the World Health Organisation, national governments, and private companies will need to be involved in funding the at-risk manufacturing of vaccine candidates and deciding how to ensure equitable access to essential products for populations worldwide.

"This pandemic has unleashed an extraordinary philanthropic response. While significant, it is still only one small part of what must be a coordinated effort to beat this global crisis," said foundation CEO Mark Suzman.

"Philanthropy cannot - and should not - supplant the public and private sectors. What philanthropy is good at is testing out ideas that might not otherwise get tried, so governments and businesses can then take on the successful ones. With all sectors working together, we can avoid the worst-case scenarios of human, economic, and social costs," he added.

The foundation identified four priority areas for investment: accelerating virus detection, protecting the most vulnerable, minimising social and economic impact, and developing products for a sustained response.