World Bank and IMF urge G7 to release surplus vaccines

Next Friday and Saturday, Malpass and Georgieva will meet in person with financial officials from the G7 countries (Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, France and Japan), and the COVID-19 pandemic will be a major topic.

The two organizations welcomed US plans to distribute the first 25 million doses of the 80 million doses of vaccines that Washington has pledged to share globally by the end of this month.

“It’s a good start and I hope there will be more doses available, especially for countries that have implementation programmes,” Malpass told Reuters.

The new coronavirus has killed more than 3.7 million people worldwide, according to a Reuters tally.

While about half of the US population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, the percentage in developing countries is still in the double digits, said Mamta Murthy, vice president for human development at the World Bank.

The World Bank, the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization this week backed the International Monetary Fund’s $50 billion plan to end the pandemic by expanding access to vaccines.