ACT accelerator

About ACT accelerator

• The Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT Accelerator or ACT-A), or the Global Collaboration to Accelerate the Development, Production and Equitable Access to New COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, is a G20 initiative announced on 24 April 2020.
• In response to the call of G20, a multinational collaboration, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), GAVI the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF,  the World Bank etc formed the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator to raise financial support of accelerated research and development, production, and globally-equitable access to COVID-19 tests, therapies, and vaccines.
• The ACT Accelerator is a cross-discipline support structure to enable partners to share resources and knowledge. It comprises four pillars, each managed by two to three collaborating partners:
  • Vaccines (also called "COVAX")
  • Diagnostics
  • Therapeutics
  • Health Systems Connector

What is Covax?

• COVAX is part of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator and is the vaccines' pillar of ACT.
•  It is co-managed by three partner agencies: Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the WHO.
• It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries.
• COVAX acts as a platform that will support the research, development and manufacturing of a wide range of COVID-19 vaccine candidates and will negotiate the pricing.
• By joining COVAX, all participating countries and economies -- regardless of their ability to pay -- will have access to a portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines, once they are developed and proven to be both safe and effective, according to GAVI.

Prelims Question:

ACT-A recently in news is related to the field of:
(a)Cyclone management
(b)Covid-19 response
(c)Women empowerment
(d)Marine navigation

Answer to Prelims question