Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, unprecedented public-private research collaborations have led to the development and approval of highly effective vaccines in record time. Nevertheless, one year after the first vaccines were made available, their distribution remains highly unequal, with an overwhelming majority of doses so far delivered to populations in high-income countries. Even as vaccine production has expanded, inequities have worsened, especially among lower income countries. COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, was launched in 2020 to help ensure initially 2 billion Covid-19 vaccines would reach the most vulnerable in lower income countries in 2021.

With vaccine suppliers initially prioritizing wealthy countries, COVAX has had to shift its 2021 targets dramatically, at the same time as the United States has become a strategic partner, pledging 1 billion doses of Pfizer vaccine through September of 2022, and other important measures have been taken to reset the prospect of global vaccine equity. How to understand the hard lessons of 2021? And what lies ahead in 2022?

Please join the CSIS Global Health Policy Center on Monday, November 15^th from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET for a virtual conversation with Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, which oversees the COVAX Facility dedicated to vaccine procurement and distribution. Katherine E. Bliss, Senior Fellow and Director of Immunizations and Health Systems Resilience at the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, will moderate the discussion.

This event is made possible by the generous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The recording of this event will be available via the event page on csis.org