Saudi Arabia pledged on Thursday $150 million to the GAVI vaccine alliance, a public-private global health partnership.
During an extraordinary virtual G20 summit on coronavirus that it chaired in March, Saudi Arabia announced that it would contribute $500 million to international efforts to fight the pandemic.
Of that amount, $150 million would be allocated to GAVI, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a vaccine summit hosted by the British government.
The summit, held virtually in London, aims to raise at least $7.4 billion for GAVI to immunize a further 300 million children in the world's poorest countries by 2025 against diseases such as malaria, polio, diphtheria and measles.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reaffirms its support for the noble work GAVI carries out in protecting human lives,” Prince Faisal said on his Twitter account.
“I was honored to represent the Kingdom at today’s vaccine summit and to announce the allocation of US$150 million to support the great efforts of the alliance,” he added.