D I P L O M AT I C A| QUESTIONS A SKED Bruce Aylward, head of the WHO’s ACT Accelerator program
‘These are always hard times. This is a Churchillian moment we're looking for here’
Diplomat magazine: Canada was the only G7 country slated to draw from COVAX’s vaccine supply in the program’s first allotment. Were you disappointed in Canada when it accessed COVAX vaccines? Bruce Aylward: Every leader is going to do what they deem most important to protect the populations of their countries. They are elected by the people of their countries, they put mechanisms in place to take care of their health first and then broader populations subsequently. It’s [not] my position to judge why and what leaders will do in that position, especially knowing the Canadian government, with its incredibly deep and sincere commitment to multilateral action and to helping the vulnerable. They’ve been fantastic champions of that. If there’s a situation in which they do something not to run directly in line with that, at a certain point, you have to say the leaders are doing what they deem they were elected to do for their people. We also have to look forward. Our goal is to get 40 per cent of the world vaccinated by the end of this year and then 70 per cent by the end of next year. We’re going to need everyone working together to get to those [goals] and Canada has been a fantastic partner in getting us this far — getting COVAX set up and vaccines [in 20
arms.] We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Canada to get everyone else vaccinated. That same sort of ambition they have for the people of Canada, we need that everywhere else, too, to get people vaccinated. Today, we’re just over 30 per cent of the world’s population vaccinated. Over 40 per cent of the world’s population has one dose. It’s just extraordinary less than a year after the vaccine was invented. In Africa, those numbers are 2 per cent and 4 per cent and that’s what we need to change and we need Canada’s help massively on that. COVAX works. I keep telling people we have a fantastic vehicle. We can get vaccines anywhere as rapidly as possible. We have no-fault compensation for 92 countries, on-the-ground assistance in 150 countries, a footprint for UNICEF and the WHO. The machinery all works and it’s unprecedented — there’s never been anything like it before. But, not everybody wants to play ball and countries like Canada and the G7 have to, first and foremost, make sure manufacturers prioritize COVAX. That’s the bottom line. DM: What was the COVAX policy that
allowed Canada to tap those vaccines that were supposed to be for poorer countries? BA: COVAX is a pretty unique construct and remember, this is the first time in history where you’ve tried to do something where you’ve brought together highincome, low-income, middle-income countries into a single mechanism to pool procurement. When we set up COVAX, there was no vaccine. At that point, we were trying to reduce risk for everyone, pool procurement, optimize prices and supply and that requires high-, upper- and low-income countries to all be part of it. When we started COVAX, we had the participation of the AMC countries [92 low- and middle-income countries] that will get donated doses, but we also needed the participation of the other countries, which have to buy doses. With their downpayments and optioning FALL 2021 | OCT-NOV-DEC
WHO/CHRISTOPHER BLACK
Epidemiologist Bruce Aylward is the senior adviser on organizational change to the WHO’s director general. He’s also a Canadian from Newfoundland, and has spent his career in public health, much of it at the WHO, where he’s held various positions, including special representative of the director general for the Ebola response. He also led the WHO’s global response to Zika virus. In February 2020, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom asked him to lead the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease. In the midst of the fourth wave, he spoke with Diplomat editor Jennifer Campbell.
