Global Health Community Letter to President Biden on Supporting the Global COVID Response

November 24, 2021

Joseph R. Biden
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden:

Thank you for hosting the Global COVID-19 Summit, where the United States demonstrated tremendous leadership to marshall political will to vaccinate the world, save lives now, and build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic. Resources to achieve these targets must now be allocated quickly to follow through on commitments, accelerate the push for new resources from other nations, and ensure a more equitable response and recovery. Before negotiations on the FY22 appropriations bills conclude, we urge you to request Congress provide at least $17 billion in new funding. This funding is necessary to end the pandemic by assisting the world in reaching 70 percent vaccine coverage by the middle of 2022; save lives now through increased access to other lifesaving tools; respond to life-threatening and destabilizing socio-economic impacts of the pandemic; and prevent future pandemics from occurring.

As organizations working across a multitude of global health, development and humanitarian challenges, we understand that while political will, partners, countries, civil society and communities are critical to a successful global health and humanitarian crisis response, the foundation of it all is the financial resources to get the job done. As such, we commend your Administration’s pledge to provide at least 1.1 billion vaccine doses to the world through COVAX, but remain concerned that there are insufficient resources to deliver those vaccines to the people in need and mitigate other impacts of the pandemic.

The length and severity of the pandemic means that previous U.S. government resources for the global COVID-19 response are all but expended. New resources are needed to both live up to our commitments and bring the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to an end.

We see additional global COVID-19 response funding as imperative for three reasons. The first is both moral and practical: to save lives from COVID-19 and end the pandemic globally. The pandemic will not be over for us in the United States until it is over everywhere. Uncontrolled spread can lead to new variants, some that may be resistant to existing vaccines, only further prolonging the deadly pandemic. Continued global instability also threatens our own economic recovery.

Second, an under-resourced global response and vaccine roll-out will not only damage global efforts to end the current pandemic, but also undermine all foreign assistance if these programs are seen as ineffective and wasteful. Vaccine scale-up is expected to be an extremely swift and challenging endeavor, and the prospect of vaccines expiring before being administered — including some vaccines whose development, clinical trials, and purchase were underwritten by significant U.S. government investment —is a real possibility if additional resources for delivery do not materialize. We know from previous public health crises that an early and robust response is necessary for success. The unmitigated successes of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) show that U.S. leadership and resources coupled with in-country know-how and buy-in can lead to millions of lives improved and saved. When Ebola ravaged West Africa, the U.S. acted decisively, which was critical to stopping the outbreak in its tracks. Our global response to COVID-19, while larger than that of other donors, has been meager compared to how the U.S. stepped up to past health threats.

Lastly, critical global health and development programs have already been pushed off track by the pandemic. Emerging data from the Global Financing Facility suggests that, since the start of the pandemic in the world’s poorest countries, for every COVID-19 death more than two women and children have lost their lives as result of disruptions to essential health services. There is backtracking in the global HIV response for the first time since PEPFAR’s inception, and tuberculosis deaths rose for the first time in more than a decade due to extreme program disruptions. There also remains a critical gap in resources to address life-threatening and destabilizing social and economic impacts of the pandemic and preparedness for emerging pandemic threats, which if left unaddressed, will continue to wreak havoc on the world’s most vulnerable communities, undermine global economic recovery from COVID-19 and make the world even more vulnerable to future disease threats.

An under-resourced global COVID-19 response puts the success of existing global health and development programs at risk if financial and human resources and health systems are stretched beyond their capacity to deliver these critical services and COVID-19 vaccines. Our past global COVID-19 investments have leveraged existing U.S. global health and development ingenuity, platforms and relationships to efficiently and effectively make a tremendous impact on the pandemic, but with funding running out, there is a financial and programmatic cliff ahead.

President Biden, this is your moment to show the world that the U.S. will once again effectively step up to meet a global infectious disease challenge, get the job done as quickly and decisively as possible, and build a positive, changed legacy for the future. The Global COVID-19 Summit was an important step, but targets set must be backed by requisite investments to end this pandemic quickly and begin to build a healthier, safer, more equitable world. Congress is looking to you for direction and ambition; please request Congress provide at least $17 billion in supplemental funds to ensure the world is on the path to end this devastating pandemic and make meaningful changes for the future.

Sincerely,
Advancing Synergy Advocates for Youth
American Heart Association
American Jewish World Service
American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene
Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO)
AVAC
Better World Campaign
CARE
Christian Connections for International Health Columbia University and ICAP
Community Health Impact Coalition
CORE Group
DAI
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation|
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Fast-Track Cities Institute
FIND
Food for the Hungry
Fòs Feminista
Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Frontline Health Workers Coalition
Fund for Global Health
Global Alliance for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma, & Anaesthesia Care (The G4 Alliance)
Global Citizen
Global Communities
Global Health Advocacy Incubator
Global Health Council
Global Health Technologies Coalition
Health GAP
Heartland Alliance International
HIV Medicine Association
Housing Works, Inc.
Humanity & Inclusion
IAVI Infectious Diseases Society of America
International Association of Providers of AIDS Care
International Medical Corps
IntraHealth International
John Snow, Inc. (JSI)
Management Sciences for Health
Medical IMPACT
Nothing But Nets
Nuclear Threat Initiative
ONE
Open Society Policy Center
PAI Pandemic Action Network
Partners In Health
PATH
Pathfinder International
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Population Institute
Population Services International (PSI)
Promundo-US
Public Citizen
R2H Action [Right to Health]
RESULTS
ReSurge International
Sabin Vaccine Institute
Seed Global Health
Shot@Life
TB Alliance
The Borgen Project
The Hunger Project
Treatment Action Group
United Nations Association of the USA
What To Expect Project
Women’s Refugee Commission

cc:
Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff
Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor/Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, National Security Council
Jeff Zients, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator
Elizabeth Cameron, Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense, National Security Council
Linda Etim, Senior Director for Development, Global Health, and Humanitarian Response/Special Assistant to the President, National Security Council
Ed Meier, Associate Director for National Security Programs, White House Office of Management and Budget
Gayle Smith, Coordinator for Global COVID Response and Health Security, U.S. Department of State
Samantha Power, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development
Jeremy Konydyk, Senior Advisor, Office of the Administrator; Executive Director, USAID COVID-19 Task Force
Loyce Pace, Director, Office of Global Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services