Singer Madonna, Bill and Melinda Gates, princes, a king, presidents and heads of state participated in a global telethon in Brussels on Monday to fund research and development of a coronavirus vaccine that has helped to collect 7.4 billion euros in contributions. The United States was the big absent from this three-hour online marathon, along with Russia and India.
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"Our best collective chance to defeat the virus"
"We did it. We got 7.4 billion euros," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced with a big smile after this call for funds. Madonna was the last donor with a million dollars. The target was 7.5 billion euros, or 8 billion dollars. It should be reached in the coming days because Turkey, the Principality of Monaco and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have not specified the amount of their contributions.
China, where the virus started, pledged € 45.6 million. South Africa, representative of the continent, has pledged 1.1 billion. The countries of Central and Latin America made promises without quantifying them, through the voice of the representative of Mexico. The European Commission had kicked off this marathon by promising a billion euros, followed by France and Germany, which made it possible to pass the 2 billion mark with contributions of 500 and 525 million d 'euros respectively.
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A vaccine is "our best collective chance of defeating the virus," said Ursula von der Leyen. "We must develop a vaccine, produce it and deploy it in all corners of the world. And we must make it available at affordable prices," argued the German official.
United States rider
But this initiative was thwarted by the horseman of the United States. President Donald Trump is in open conflict with the World Health Organization (WHO) and shows his desire to see the United States get a vaccine for the end of the year. "Every man for himself is a major error," lamented the French head of state Emmanuel Macron. "We must cooperate and not compete with each other," added King Abdullah II of Jordan.
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"But we are working very closely with very powerful American entities, like the foundation of Bill and Melinda Gates who have enormous financial power and a lot of influence," said a European official. The fundraising of the Commission is a first step. "It will take five times that amount" to develop and distribute the vaccine, warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
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The first consequence of the single American rider could be an acceleration of rivalries in the vaccine race, which Europeans fear. "The United States hopes to win the vaccine war and is ready to put all its forces into the battle," underlines Isabelle Marchais in a note Monday from the Jacques Delors Institute. Over a hundred research projects are currently being carried out worldwide, eight of which are already in the clinical trials stage in the United States, China and Europe, she said.