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The signed advance purchase agreements will make doses available to COVAX starting from July to help address immediate and critical gaps in supply
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Addition of the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, which have already been granted WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL), further diversifies the Gavi-managed COVAX Facility portfolio, which now includes 11 vaccines and vaccine candidates
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Gavi CEO Seth Berkley: “I welcome today’s agreements, which will make doses immediately available to COVAX participants.”
Geneva, 12 July 2021 – Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced today that it had signed advance purchase agreements (APAs) with Sinopharm for its “BBIBP-CorV” inactivated virus vaccine against COVID-19 as well as with Sinovac for its inactivated virus vaccine against COVID-19, “CoronaVac”. The agreements, which come at a time when the Delta variant is posing a rising risk to health systems, will begin to make 110 million doses immediately available to participants of the COVAX Facility, with options for additional doses.
The Sinopharm APA enables Q3 supply, with Gavi committing to purchase, on behalf of the COVAX Facility, 60 million doses that will be made available from July through October 2021. In addition, Gavi has the option to purchase a further 60 million doses in Q4 2021 and 50 million more doses in the first half of 2022, if necessary. This equates to a potential total of 170 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine that could be made available to self-financing participants of the Facility as well as participants supported by the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC).
The Sinovac APA also enables Q3 supply, with Gavi committing to purchase, on behalf of the COVAX Facility, 50 million doses to be made available from July through September 2021. In addition, Gavi has the option to purchase a further 150 million doses in Q4 2021 and 180 million more doses in the first half of 2022. In total, up to 380 million potential doses of the Sinovac vaccine could be available to both self-financing participants of the Facility as well as those supported by the Gavi COVAX AMC.
“I welcome today’s agreements with Sinopharm and Sinovac, which will make doses immediately available to COVAX participants,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi. “This is yet another example of Gavi’s active portfolio management strategy, ensuring the Facility has options in the face of constraints such as supply delays. Thanks to this deal, and because these vaccines have already received WHO Emergency Use Listing, we can move to start supplying doses to countries immediately.”
Gavi and COVAX partners will now move quickly to ensure all the critical elements required before doses can be shipped – including official allocation by the Facility, UNICEF and PAHO procurement agreements, among others – are in place.
The COVAX Facility portfolio, administered by Gavi, currently consists of agreements related to 11 vaccines and vaccine candidates – AstraZeneca/Oxford, Clover, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sanofi/GSK, SII-Covishield, SII-Covovax, Sinopharm and Sinovac – providing participants access to a diverse range of vaccines suitable for use in varied contexts and settings, and to mitigate against the risk of R&D failures, regulatory delays and supply constraints.
Gavi has recently published an updated Facility global supply forecast, which shows that, thanks to several deals with manufacturers as well as donations from countries with excess supply, COVAX is on track to deliver more than 2 billion doses by early 2022. Of these, 1.8 billion fully donor-funded doses will be available for the 92 lower-income participants eligible for support by the Gavi COVAX AMC.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Meghana Sharafudeen
+41 79 711 55 54
msharafudeen@gavi.org
Iryna Mazur
+41 79 429 36 71
imazur@gavi.org
Cirũ Kariũki
+41 79 913 94 41
ckariuki@gavi.org
Evan O’Connell
+41 79 682 18 95
eoconnell@gavi.org
Laura Shevlin
+ 41 79 529 92 87
lshevlin@gavi.org
