Leading Australian voices, including the ANMF, have outlined the overwhelming moral, health and economic case for investing in global vaccine equity and pandemic preparedness.

More than 70 of Australia’s leading epidemiologists, GPs, global health, business, development and aid organisations have signed an open letter calling on the Prime Minister Scott Morrison to make a Budget commitment to accelerate the global vaccination effort and prevent the emergence of another COVID variant of concern.

The letter proposes three important contributions Australia could make:

• Continue to add our weight to tackling global vaccine inequity through the COVAX AMC Facility.
• Use our partnerships to tackle vaccine hesitancy.
• Reduce the chance of future outbreaks, variants and pandemics.

“Less than six per cent of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated and case numbers are increasing. This is unfair, immoral, dangerous for those communities and dangerous for Australia,” the letter says.

“Australia has pledged 60 million vaccines for the region by the end of 2022. But the problem right now is vaccine hesitancy and getting shots into arms. Despite supply, our nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, is less than three per cent fully vaccinated and the Solomon Islands just over eleven per cent.”

The letter says Australia should support the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which has “developed a plan to accelerate the end of COVID-19 while protecting the world from future pandemics, building on what we’ve learned in the past 18 months”.