The Facilitation Council of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) holds its first meeting online on September,10,2020 (photo:baoquocte.vn)

At the first meeting of the council on September 10, Mai thanked the WHO and the European Mission for inviting Vietnam to attend the event as the ASEAN Chair in 2020. She went on by highlighting ASEAN and Vietnam’s recent efforts in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and affirming the member states’ commitments to enhancing solidarity and international cooperation to fight the pandemic, particularly activities of the Facilitation Council of the ATC-A so as to promote equitable access to vaccines and tools responding to the pandemic as well as post-pandemic recovery.

The council was established on September 10 with 34 members, comprising several international organisations, representative countries like Vietnam as the ASEAN Chair and Singapore as representative for the small states forum, and nine initial sponsors - the UK, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, Japan, France and Spain, and eight countries forming markets for COVID-19 tools, including India, Brazil, the Republic of Korea, the US, Indonesia, South Africa, Russia, and China.

Planning to operate in 18 months, the council will work to promote international collaboration, mobilize support and necessary resources to accelerate the development, scale-up and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for all health systems.