Merkel, Macron Back $8 Billion Virus Vaccine Fund Effort

(Bloomberg) --

The World Health Organization and the leaders of France and Germany launched an $8 billion drive to accelerate development of a coronavirus vaccine, stressing it should be available to everyone without favor shown to the country that develops it first.

“The world needs these tools and it needs them fast,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference Friday. “In the past they have not been available to all. That cannot be allowed to happen again.”

The WHO, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are stressing unity as the global health body comes under criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, and politicians elsewhere try to put their own countries first. U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier this week that Britons should be at the front of the line for any vaccine developed in the country, raising tensions with other European political leaders.

While researchers in a single country may develop a vaccine, “we need to make sure it is rendered accessible to all of those around the world,” Macron said in a virtual press conference.

He also called on the U.S. and China to mend their relationship to fight the coronavirus. Trump last week said he would suspend American contributions to the WHO because the organization has been too soft on China, where the virus was first identified.

“I hope we’ll be able to reconcile around this common initiative -- China and the U.S.,” Macron said. “No divide should prevent us from winning this battle.”

European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen will host a virtual summit meeting on May 4 at which world leaders will push to raise the targeted 7.5 billion euros ($8 billion).

Merkel called for new methods of production and new production capacities “in as many places as possible” and said Germany will make a “substantial” contribution.

“I want to urge everyone, whether in politics or in the private sector, to support us in closing this funding gap,” the German leader said. “We are talking here about global public property, about producing this vaccine and then distributing it all around the world.”

Melinda Gates, head of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a key supporter of public health efforts, spoke at the press conference, but no U.S. politicians did.

Other political leaders who took part in the briefing included Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and U.K. Foreign Minister Dominic Raab. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also made a brief appearance.

“We are in the fight of our lives, we are in it together and we will come out of it stronger together,” said Guterres.

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