Wellcome Trust Pledges Further US $100 million to Accelerate Covid-19 Research

The Wellcome trust is pledging up to US $100 million (£70m/€80m) to accelerate Covid-19 research and development to ensure science keeps pace with the virus.

The funding will help advance treatments and vaccines and SARS-CoV-2 tracking research in low and middle income countries.

Announcing the funding on Wednesday, the trust said the rise and spread of COVID-19 meant new vaccines and treatments were needed along with better global systems to identify and track changes in the virus.

Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome, announced massive funding on Wednesday to accelerate Covid-19 research and development.

Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome, said: “More funding is vital to develop the range of treatments and vaccines the world needs – and to make sure these, and those we already have, are fairly and equally available in all countries. The job for science is a long way from done – either to exit this crisis or ensure the world can keep Covid-19 in check long-term”.

The trust said international funding was not keeping pace with global research needs. The ACT-Accelerator faces a $22.1billion global funding gap

Divya Shah, Wellcome’s Epidemics Research Lead, said: “Virus mutations threaten the effectiveness of the Covid-19 tools we have worked so hard to develop. We need to build capacity for genomic sequencing globally to identify new variants and map their spread to inform public health measures and further research”.

The US $100 milion package follows $80m (£60m/€70m) Wellcome pledged in 2020 for treatments, research and capacity building in low- and middle-income countries. The US $80 million included up to $50m in seed funding for the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.

 

Image Credits: Wellcome Trust.

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