New Shipment of COVID-19 Vaccines from the COVAX Facility Arrive in Lao PDR

Vientiane, 2 June 2021 - Lao PDR today received a new shipment of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX Facility – a partnership between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) – consisting of 100,620 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

The Government of Lao PDR will use this batch to vaccinate 50,300 people above 60 years of age and with underlying health conditions, in line with the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan developed by the Government of Lao PDR. The vaccine rollout will start in Vientiane capital and later expand to other high-risk areas such as Bokeo, Champasak and Savannakhet.

“The arrival of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccines is very timely as the Government of Lao PDR has set an ambitious target of protecting 50 percent of the total population with COVID-19 vaccines in 2021. These vaccines will move us towards the achievement of this target. I would like to also emphasize that while vaccines help countries control COVID-19, we must continue to maintain physical distance, wear masks and wash hands  frequently with soap – even after getting two doses of COVID-19 vaccine,” said the Vice-Minister of Health, H.E. Dr. Sanong Thongsana.

The COVID-19 vaccines being used in Lao PDR have gone through a rigorous development and safety testing procedures, and the Ministry of Health's Food and Drug Department has assessed the evidence, benefits and risks. The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was listed for emergency use by WHO on 31 December 2020.

“It is with great pleasure that we welcome this shipment of Pfizer BioNTech vaccines from the COVAX Facility.  All three of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use in Lao PDR have been emergency use listed by WHO, giving assurance about the quality, safety, and efficacy of these vaccines,” said Dr. Mark Jacobs, WHO Representative to Lao PDR. “I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Government of Lao PDR on developing the capacity to manage the use of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which requires special storage to maintain this vaccine in the proper conditions,” he added.

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine requires an extremely cold storage temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius to maintain its efficacy and therefore requires an ultra-cold chain (UCC). The Institut Pasteur du Laos (IPL) has reserved two units of new ultra-cold freezers specifically for COVID-19 vaccines, which could potentially store up to 740,000 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

The National Centre Laboratory Epidemiology (NCLE) has also dedicated one ultra-cold freezer with storage capacity for 300,000 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. WHO has procured three additional ultra-cold freezers that could store up to approximately 360,000 doses of the vaccine for use in both Vientiane Capital and other provinces. These add to the 157 refrigerators from UNICEF and 20 freezers from WHO provided to the Government of Lao PDR to strengthen its cold chain capacity.  

"The arrival of this latest shipment of vaccines represents yet another important milestone in Lao PDR’s pandemic response and a step towards ensuring equitable and fair access to COVID-19 vaccines globally," stated Ms. Beate Dastel, UNICEF Representative a.i. to Lao PDR. “I would like to congratulate the Government of Lao PDR for their effective handling of new COVID-19 cases in the country and swiftly rolling out vaccinations to protect the Lao people. UNICEF and our partners will continue to work closely together to support Lao PDR’s pandemic response, including the procurement of the vaccines,” she added.

In addition to the vaccines, Lao PDR will receive on June 6 an additional supply of 100,700 syringes and 1,175 safety boxes procured by UNICEF.

The first shipment of COVAX-supported vaccines consisting of 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine arrived in the country on 20 March. This is the second shipment of COVAX-supported vaccines in Lao PDR. Additional consignments are expected to arrive in the country by the end of the year.

COVAX is co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, WHO and CEPI, working in partnership with UNICEF as well as the World Bank, civil society organizations, manufacturers, and others. COVAX is part of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, a ground-breaking global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.

Gavi board members represented in Lao PDR include Australia, Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Japan, The Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

About COVAX

COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Gavi) and the World Health Organization (WHO) – working in partnership with developed and developing country vaccine manufacturers, UNICEF, the World Bank, and others. It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries.

CEPI is focused on the COVAX vaccine research and development portfolio: investing in R&D across a variety of promising candidates, with the goal to support development of three safe and effective vaccines which can be made available to countries participating in the COVAX Facility. As part of this work, CEPI has secured first right of refusal to potentially over one billion doses for the COVAX Facility to a number of candidates, and made strategic investments in vaccine manufacturing, which includes reserving capacity to manufacture doses of COVAX vaccines at a network of facilities, and securing glass vials to hold 2 billion doses of vaccine. CEPI is also investing in the ‘next generation’ of vaccine candidates, which will give the world additional options to control COVID-19 in the future.  

Gavi is focused on procurement and delivery for COVAX: coordinating the design, implementation and administration of the COVAX Facility and the Gavi COVAX AMC and working with its Alliance partners UNICEF and WHO, along with governments, on country readiness and delivery. The COVAX Facility is the global pooled procurement mechanism for COVID-19 vaccines through which COVAX will ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for all 190 participating economies, using an allocation framework formulated by WHO. The COVAX Facility will do this by pooling buying power from participating economies and providing volume guarantees across a range of promising vaccine candidates. The Gavi COVAX AMC is the financing mechanism that will support the participation of 92 low- and middle-income countries in the Facility, enabling access to donor-funded doses of safe and effective vaccines. Gavi is fundraising for the COVAX AMC, and funding UNICEF procurement of vaccines as well as partners’ and governments work on readiness and delivery, including support cold chain equipment, technical assistance, syringes, vehicles, and other aspects of the vastly complex logistical operation for delivery. UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) will be acting as procurement coordinators for the COVAX Facility, helping deliver vaccines to COVAX AMC participants and others.

WHO has multiple roles within COVAX: It provides normative guidance on vaccine policy, regulation, safety, R&D, allocation, and country readiness and delivery. Its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization develops evidence-based immunization policy recommendations. Its Emergency Use Listing (EUL)/prequalification programmes ensure harmonized review and authorization across member states. It provides global coordination and member state support on vaccine safety monitoring. It developed the target product profiles for COVID-19 vaccines and provides R&D technical coordination.  WHO leads, along with UNICEF, the support to countries as they prepare to receive and administer vaccines. The Country Readiness and Delivery (CRD) workstream includes Gavi and numerous other partners working at the global, regional, and country-level to provide tools, guidance, monitoring, and on the ground technical assistance for the planning and roll-out of the vaccines.  Along with COVAX partners, WHO is also developing a no-fault compensation scheme as part of the time-limited indemnification and liability commitments.

UNICEF is leveraging its experience as the largest single vaccine buyer in the world and working with manufacturers and partners on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccine doses, as well as freight, logistics and storage. UNICEF already procures more than 2 billion doses of vaccines annually for routine immunization and outbreak response on behalf of nearly 100 countries. In collaboration with the PAHO Revolving Fund, UNICEF is leading efforts to procure and supply doses of COVID-19 vaccines for COVAX. In addition, UNICEF, Gavi and WHO are working with governments around the clock to ensure that countries are ready to receive the vaccines, with appropriate cold chain equipment in place and health workers trained to dispense them. UNICEF is also playing a lead role in efforts to foster trust in vaccines, delivering vaccine confidence communications and tracking and addressing misinformation around the world.

About CEPI

CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated 11 partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programmes are leveraging rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships.

Before the emergence of COVID-19, CEPI’s priority diseases included Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever and Chikungunya virus. CEPI also invested in platform technologies that can be used for rapid vaccine and immunoprophylactic development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).

About Gavi

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 822 million children – and prevented more than 14 million deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 developing countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningitis and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation and reaching the unvaccinated children still being left behind, employing innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save millions more lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency. Learn more at www.gavi.org and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. View the full list of donor governments and other leading organizations that fund Gavi’s work here.

About WHO

The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
 
For updates on COVID-19 and public health advice to protect yourself from coronavirus, visit www.who.int and follow WHO on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok,  Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube

About the ACT-Accelerator

The Access to COVID-19 Tools ACT-Accelerator, is a new, ground-breaking global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. It was set up in response to a call from G20 leaders in March and launched by the WHO, European Commission, France and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in April 2020.

The ACT-Accelerator is not a decision-making body or a new organisation, but works to speed up collaborative efforts among existing organisations to end the pandemic. It is a framework for collaboration that has been designed to bring key players around the table with the goal of ending the pandemic as quickly as possible through the accelerated development, equitable allocation, and scaled up delivery of tests, treatments and vaccines, thereby protecting health systems and restoring societies and economies in the near term. It draws on the experience of leading global health organisations which are tackling the world’s toughest health challenges, and who, by working together, are able to unlock new and more ambitious results against COVID-19. Its members share a commitment to ensure all people have access to all the tools needed to defeat COVID-19 and to work with unprecedented levels of partnership to achieve it.

The ACT-Accelerator has four areas of work: diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and the health system connector. Cross-cutting all of these is the workstream on Access & Allocation.