Giving Compass' Take:

• A health agency called Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance shares four ways it responds to COVID-19 by strengthening health systems. 

• How are donors focus on health systems struggling to address the pandemic? 

•  Learn how COVID-19 spotlights health inequities. 

The COVID-19 virus might not discriminate between rich and poor — but its consequences can have different devastating effects depending on the strength of a country’s health system.

In Britain, research has warned that the National Health Service — one of the world’s largest employers — could be quickly overwhelmed by the pandemic. But how do you stop the virus ripping through a poorer population lacking the same level of infrastructure?

That’s where Gavi comes in.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, was founded 20 years ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It works to strengthen the health systems of the world’s poorest countries and help deliver lifesaving vaccines — and has immunized 760 million children around the world, preventing more than 13 million deaths.

It’s been working away at building supply chains and developing an understanding on how to contain outbreaks since 2000. While the world hunts for a COVID-19 vaccine, Gavi is perfectly poised to provide a pivotal service during the pandemic to support the world’s poorest people.

Here are four ways Gavi is already tackling the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in the world’s poorest countries.

  1. Providing trusted information 
  2. Diverting funding 
  3.  Fighting other outbreaks 
  4. Getting vaccines to the most vulnerable people

Read the full article about global health by James Hitchings-Hales at Global Citizen.