OTTAWA, 28 SEPTEMBER 2020 – CARE Canada welcomes Prime Minister Trudeau’s announcement that Canada will join the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) and the COVID-19 Advance Market Commitment.
These initiatives will help ensure the availability of COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians, as well as for people in low and middle-income countries. Bringing together governments, scientists, businesses, civil society, philanthropists and global health organizations, COVAX is the world’s only collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.
“A COVID-19 vaccine is widely recognized as the best way to end the global pandemic,” said CARE Canada President and CEO Barbara Grantham. “Given the ease with which COVID-19 spreads from person to person and across borders, fair and equitable global access to a successful vaccine is critical to ensure everyone is protected while also supporting a just global recovery from COVID-19.”
For CARE Canada and our partners around the world, equitable access to a COVID-19 vaccine will help ease mobility constraints and facilitate access to populations in need – especially women and girls. As CARE’s most recent Rapid Gender Analysis shows, women are nearly twice as likely as men to report challenges accessing quality health services.
It is critical that Canada exercise its participation in COVAX to ensure public transparency and oversight. This must include the meaningful inclusion of countries and stakeholders from populations that are most susceptible to COVID-19, but are too often marginalized in the development and implementation of global initiatives.
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CARE has spokespeople available. For media inquiries, please contact:
Lama Alsafimedia@care.ca | 613-228-5641
About CARE Canada:
Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE develops solutions alongside women and girls in developing countries to lift themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty and out of crisis. CARE stands with women and girls around the world in economic empowerment. We bring women, girls, and their communities together to challenge inequality while facing issues like food insecurity, climate change, and emergency relief in times of crisis or disaster. CARE works in 100 countries around the world.
To learn more about CARE Canada, visit www.care.ca