The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says US$15 billion in grants will be required this year to help countries, including those in the Caribbean, manage the long-term risks of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Overall, health security is economic security. As recently as our January World Economic Outlook Update, we’d estimated the cumulative losses from the pandemic to reach US$13.8 trillion,” said Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director.
“The international community should recognize that its pandemic financing addresses a systemic risk to the global economy. Thus, we are calling for additional funding to fight pandemics and strengthen health systems. This will require about US$15 billion in grants this year and US$10 billion annually after that. The cost of inaction for all of us is very high. We need to act, now,” she added.
Her comments were made as the IMF, in partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Global Fund, and Wellcome Trust published Tuesday “A Global Strategy to Manage the Long-term Risks of COVID-19” working paper, which calls for a more comprehensive and integrated pandemic response from the international community.
In the joint paper, the four global organizations assert that ending the pandemic everywhere remains an urgent economic, health, and moral priority for the world.
“It is now clear that COVID-19 is likely to be with us for the long term. Given the many possible scenarios for the evolution of COVID-19 from benign to severe scenarios, and given the limited resources countries have, we need a new strategy,” said Gopinath.
“Countries need a more comprehensive COVID-19 toolkit for fighting the pandemic that includes vaccines, tests, treatments and bolstering the resilience of health systems so they are in a better position to tackle both COVID-19 and other deadly diseases in a sustainable, effective way”, she said.
She said together with the partners on the Multilateral Leaders Taskforce and with the ACT Accelerator, the IMF stands ready to help countries meet the challenges of the pandemic and their financing needs, including through a Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST).”
CEPI chief executive officer, Richard Hatchett, said in many ways “COVID-19 has shown us the potential of human ingenuity and innovation when we direct out energy and resources in fighting a common enemy.
“It has also tragically thrown into sharp focus a global failure to work multilaterally to ensure equal access to life saving vaccines,” he said, adding that “vaccines are, and will continue to be, at the forefront of how modern societies counter infectious disease threats.
“They are one of our most potent tools against pandemic risks and will be critical to any future response. But if they are to truly fulfill their potential in preventing future pandemics their development must also go alongside investments in global surveillance, R&D, manufacturing, and health systems.”
The executive director of Global Fund, Peter Sands, said the next phase of the fight against COVID-19 will be different.
“We are in for a long fight against a virus that continues to evolve. So, we must shift to a more sustainable response that recognizes the linkages between responding to COVID-19, tackling the earlier pandemics of HIV, TB, and malaria, and preparing for future pandemic threats.
“We should step up investment in systems for health, intentionally maximizing the synergies between interventions against existing infectious diseases and initiatives to prevent, detect and respond to future infectious disease outbreaks. Stronger and more resilient systems for health, including community systems, will enable us to protect everyone, everywhere from the deadliest infectious diseases.”
The director of Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar, said these last two years have shown that remarkable progress is possible when the world comes together and supports science boldly at scale, across borders.
“This approach gave us lifesaving Covid-19 vaccines and treatments in record time. Now is not the time to ease up – the virus’s next move is anything but certain and the risk of new variants is high. We all desperately want this pandemic to be over. But simply wishing for the most optimistic scenario won’t make it so.
“We need to set our sights on developing next-generation vaccines that can block transmission and won’t require endless boosters, strengthening genomic surveillance globally so we can identify and track new variants, and improving global access to vaccines, treatments, and tests. Leaving any countries unprotected, puts us all at risk,” Farrar said.
CMC/
 says US$15 billion in grants will be required to help countries, manage long term COVID-19 risks.){kind=link}