Senior business executives from seven of Ireland’s leading companies have joined in a push to implement the COVAX global Covid-19 vaccination programme as advocated by UNICEF.
Their open letter, signed by executives at Aerogen, Avolon, ESB, Icon, KPMG Ireland, Mason Hayes & Curran and Zurich, calls on all corporate leaders in Ireland to join the UNICEF Corporate Vaccine Alliance.
The goal is to deliver more than two billion Covid-19 vaccines by the end of 2021 through UNICEF’s established global vaccine procurement and delivery infrastructure.
The letter highlights the gulf between vaccination rates in rich countries and some of the world’s poorest, where fully vaccinated rates are below 5% in many cases. The signatories also describe UNICEF’s Corporate Vaccine Alliance as an historic opportunity for companies to help bring the pandemic to an end for children, societies and economies.
Aerogen chief executive John Power said: “We must ensure that the most vulnerable children do not suffer the consequences of the pandemic. That is why Aerogen is committed to supporting UNICEF as a Lead Member of the UNICEF Corporate Vaccine Alliance.
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"This is a global cross-border effort where businesses from Ireland have a role to play. As a medical technology company we are committing our expertise and resources to ending this pandemic, especially for the most vulnerable.”
UNICEF Ireland executive director Peter Power added: “Currently we vaccinate two billion children each year, and we are now doubling that capacity to support the global Covid-19 vaccination programme.
“We all recognise that we stand at a pivotal moment between vaccines and variants. Corporate Ireland can change the trajectory of the pandemic and we need their support to help us ensure fair and safe access to vaccines across the world. Business leaders understand that vaccinating the world is not just the right thing to do, but also something we must do to restart our global economy.”
The UNICEF corporate vaccine alliance is part of the agency’s efforts in the global COVAX Facility whereby vaccines are provided to poorer countries. The scale of the effort is enormous and COVAX has already delivered more than 300 million doses to 143 countries since March.
However, more funding is needed to ensure the success of COVAX and the corporate vaccine programme assists with that. Once the doses are paid for, UNICEF says it takes just €4.48 to get two doses into the arm of each person, and wants more companies to join the alliance to help this effort.
The full text of the open letter is available here.
The seven signatories are John Power, Aerogen; Dómhnal Slattery, Avolon; Paddy Hayes, ESB; Brendan Brennan, Icon; Seamus Hand, KPMG; Declan Black, Mason Hayes & Curran; and Anthony Brennan, Zurich.
