Pledges worth millions were committed at the G7 One Health Summit in Lyon, France last week, while South African generic drug company Aspen also announced that it intends to prequalify two childhood vaccines, the hexavalent and pneumococcal vaccines, and start manufacturing these for Africa by the end of the year, reports Health Policy Watch.
The European Commission said it would contribute €700m to the next funding cycle of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, with €185m in the first year to kickstart the allocation – one of several pledges made at the summit as the World Bank, vaccine alliance Gavi, governments, philanthropies and private companies all made commitments to improve the health of humans, animals and plants.
Jozef Síkela, European Commissioner for International Partnerships, also announced a €46.5m commitment to health security in Africa and Europe, involving a partnership between the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), Africa CDC and the European Food Safety Authority.
The European Commission is also investing €30m in research and development (R&D) to combat antimicrobial resistance, and €20m in R&D for new dengue treatments.
The World Bank intends to invest $750m for One Health activities, said its VP for development finance, Akihiko Nishio, and would also boost implementation of regional health programmes in West and Central Africa.
Boost for vaccine development
Gavi Executive Director Dr Sania Nishtar said she would ask her board to approve up to $200m for upstream support to boost African vaccine manufacturing at its July meeting.
Gavi has already pledged $1bn to the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA) to promote commercial vaccine manufacturing on the continent, and will also be allocating $380m to a “resilience mechanism to ensure immunisation is at the heart of the response to crises in fragile settings”.
Later in the summit, Aspen’s Dr Stavros Nicolaou said apart from planning to prequalify the hexavalent and pneumococcal vaccines, and start manufacturing these by the end of the year, his company would also start producing human insulin with Novo Nordisk by May to address the “sinister” explosion of type 2 diabetes.
Health Policy Watch article – Flurry of Pledges at G7 One Health Summit (Open access)
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