The International
Monetary Funds on Friday proposed a $50
billion plan to end the COVID-19 pandemic, with a target of vaccinating at
least 40% of the world’s population by the end of 2021.

“Our
proposal sets targets, estimates financing requirements, and lays out pragmatic
action,” said Kristalina Georgieva, head of the International Monetary
Fund, at the Global Health Summit held in Rome as part of the G20.

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The main aim of
the plan is long-term sustainable global economic recovery, and also to have at
least 60 percent of the world’s population vaccinated by the end of 2022. The
authors also pointed out that it is now a worldwide fact that there be will no
real end to the economic crisis as long as we put an end to the health crisis

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It is in the
interest of all countries to put a definitive end to the deadly pandemic, it
argues.

“For some
time we have been warning of dangerous divergence of economic fortunes,”
said Georgieva. “It will only worsen as the gap widens between wealthy
countries that have access to vaccines and poor countries that do not.”

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At the end of
April, less than two percent of the population of Africa had been vaccinated
while more than 40 percent of the population in the United States and more than
20 percent in Europe had received at least one dose of vaccine against COVID-19,
the IMF said. IMF  is concentrating on closing
the vaccine gap to put the world back on the growth path. The goal is to
“help bring the pandemic substantially under control everywhere for
everyone’s benefit,” Georgieva said.

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To get there, the
IMF emphasized the need for additional subsidies for the international Covax
scheme — which was initially set up to try to prevent rich countries from
hoarding  COVID-19 vaccines but it is
proving to be ineffective so far.

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For the subsidies
to increase it is important that the help which comes through donations of
surplus doses is used accurately and it is also necessary to ensure the free
cross-border flow of raw materials and vaccines is carried out aptly. The
estimate of $50 billion is a combination of at least $35 billion in subsidies,
plus resources from governments and other funding, the IMF said.