A new report, authored by experts from UNICEF, WHO, Gavi, Gates Foundation, Harvard, ThinkWell, and the World Bank, “the COVAX Delivery Costing Working Group” estimated the costs of delivering COVID-19 vaccines to approximately 20% of the population in the 92 Advance Market Commitment (AMC) countries. It is assumed that the existing health system will be leveraged, and only additional resources are included – defined as financial costs. Importantly, the costs of health worker salaries are excluded from the estimates.
Total financial costs – including country, regional, and global level costs – amount to US$ 2.018 billion, equivalent to US$ 1.66 per dose supplied and US$ 3.70 per person vaccinated with two doses (after accounting for vaccine wastage).
Technical assistance and global and regional costs amount to 15% of total costs. In-country outreach and fixed site delivery comprises 57% of total costs. In-country, up-front costs, such as cold chain installation and training, comprise 28% of the total.
These values can be added to the actual vaccine costs to estimate resource requirements. There will be considerable variation in delivery costs depending upon the strategies used to reach the population, the specific target groups, geographical, local prices, and other considerations. For this reason, country-specific evaluationThe systematic and objective assessment of the relevance, adequacy, progress, efficiency, effectiveness and impact of a course of actions, in relation to of COVID-19 vaccine delivery costs is encouraged. The COVID-19 Vaccine Introduction and Deployment Costing tool is available for country use.
View the tool here.