Statement from Carolyn Reynolds and Eloise Todd, Co-Founders, Pandemic Action Network

“Today was anToday was an important step forward for global solidarity and toward the global goal of ensuring safe, equitable and affordable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for COVID-19 as soon as possible.  The Pandemic Action Network warmly welcomes funding commitments from Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the World Bank that will help deliver more COVID-19 tools in developing countries. We urge all governments and international funders to follow their lead and ensure full funding for the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.  In addition, we strongly commend the unprecedented communique signed by the CEOs of 16 pharmaceutical companies and the co-chairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, committing to enable affordability for lower income countries and to support effective and equitable distribution of innovations globally, while ensuring public confidence in those innovations with a commitment to safety. As the communique rightly says, these commitments will not only enable a faster path out of the current COVID-19 crisis but will also lay the foundation for a strong pandemic preparedness ecosystem the next time a pandemic arises.”