Bilateral Deals Will be Key to Nailing Down G20 Health Ministers’ Declaration

Italian health minister Roberto Speranza addresses a media briefing after the meeting.

 

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G20 health ministers have agreed to share COVID-19 vaccine doses with low and middle-income countries (LMIC) and to support their capacity to produce their own vaccines, but failed to commit to numbers or a time frame.

The two-day meeting of G20 health ministers ended on Monday with the adoption of a health declaration that reiterated the group’s support for strengthening “the resilience of [COVID-19 vaccine] supply chains, to increase and diversify global, local and regional vaccine manufacturing capacity, and building expertise for LMICs, including for the raw materials needed to produce vaccines”.

But host Italian health minister Roberto Speranza told the media at a post-meeting briefing on Monday that the G20 countries would need to “consider the text as a starting point”.

“Some countries have bilateral arrangements to send vaccine doses directly to LMICs and COVAX,” Speranza told a meeting briefing on Monday. “But it is not enough to transfer doses. We really need to make sure that all areas are capable of producing their own vaccines by sharing methodology and personnel.”

While the declaration acknowledges that “we need to also share more doses to meet the immediate need for safe, effective and quality and affordable vaccines building upon the commitments made at the COVAX Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) Summit”, only Germany was prepared to make a numbers-based commitment.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced on the sidelines of the meeting that his country would make 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses available globally before the end of the year.

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