Following the launch of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) by the World Health Organization (WHO) to bring governments and global health actors together in an ‘unprecedented and inclusive partnership’ to address some of the challenges linked with the management of the COVID-19 emergency and the development and delivery of needed treatments, vaccines and diagnostics, the European Public Health Alliance has joined calls from over 70 organisations across the world for a number of principles and practices to be operationalised as the global response to the pandemic gathers force.
The partnership will need to address and find equitable solutions to several challenges, including the imminent need to develop, test and produce safe and effective tools to explore different ways of funding and pricing; as well as the scaling up of manufacturing to meet global demand; and the organisation of supply chains that ensure health products are distributed fairly and made available to all people, especially the most vulnerable, in all countries and free of charge at the point of care.
Specifically, to maximise the collective effort to ensure maximum global health impact and equitable reach. the ACT-A partnership should:
- implement full transparency and guarantee public accountability from priority setting to delivery
- work towards the public common good
- guarantee adequate production and fair allocation with a global scope
- ensure that COVID-19 health tools will be affordable to healthcare payers and free to the public at the point of care in all countries
- guarantee collaboration across initiatives