Another US$1.2 billion put aside to help countries pay for public health measures such as testing, tracing and treatment of virus patients

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)  is mobilising US$1 billion to help countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to buy and distribute vaccines to fight the deadly COVID-19 global pandemic

Through this funding the IDB plans to support LAC countries in three main areas of buying vaccine doses, strengthening institutions to deploy the shots and building immunization capacity as well as funding operational costs.

The Washington-based lending agency disclosed that this funding provision is in addition to the US$1.2 billion that it has allocated this year to help LAC countries pay for public health measures such as testing, tracing and treatment of virus patients.

Commenting on the loan being approved for LAC countries to buy COVID-19 vaccines, IDB President Mauricio Claver-Carone remarked that this is “still just a fraction of the resources Latin America will need”.

As much as US$150 billion is needed

Speaking in an on-line event on Tuesday Carone reported that the region requires as much as US$150 billion for health care spending to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes and Venezuela’s refugee crisis.

Latin America has eight per cent of the world’s population and 30 per cent of its COVID-19 deaths. Nations within the LAC region  are experiencing one of the worst economic contractions in their history, as millions have lost jobs or fallen into poverty.

The International Monetary Fund sees this period as a lost decade, with per capita income in 2025 lower than in 2015. Last week two key U.S. senators, Democrat Bob Menendez and Republican Marco Rubio, introduced a bill aimed at helping increase the bank’s lending to $20 billion a year from about $13 billion currently to fight COVID-19.

Call for redoubling COVID-19 efforts

And in what would appear to be a preparatory process for the administering of the COVID-19 vaccines, the IDB has issued a call for LAC governments to redouble their efforts to prepare national deployment and vaccination plans.

The IDB president was quoted last week as saying that the bank was expanding its support “to help Latin America and Caribbean countries ensure timely access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccinations”.