Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide co-hosted a virtual COVAX AMC Summit meeting on 2 June with Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso, Gavi Board Chair.
This Summit was organized to raise additional funding to secure the necessary amount of vaccines for developing countries including Laos by the end of 2021.
Prime Minister Suga announced Japan’s additional contribution of 800 million USD pushing up Japan’s commitment to one billion USD in total. In addition, Prime Minister Suga expressed Japan s intention to provide, when circumstances allow and at an appropriate time, around 30 million doses of vaccines manufactured in Japan with other countries and regions through the COVAX Facility and other channels.
At the Summit, alongside Japan’s initiative, many countries made a further commitment which has secured 8.3 billion USD and 1.8 billion vaccine doses to protect nearly 30 percent of the population in AMC eligible countries.
On the same day as the summit, Laos received 100,620 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine through the COVAX Facility.
Additional consignments are also expected to arrive in the country by the end of this year. Japan continues cooperation with UNICEF and other international partners to deliver enough vaccines for every region of the country by improving cold chain logistics with refrigerators and freezers
