The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $18.9 million in grants to help four developing member countries (DMCs) in the Pacific roll out safe and effective vaccines against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

The grants to Samoa ($8 million), Tonga ($5.5 million), Tuvalu ($1.5 million), and Vanuatu ($3.9 million) will support their COVID-19 vaccination programs for a combined population of almost 600,000 people. The project is financed by ADB’s $9 billion Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility launched in December 2020 to offer rapid and equitable vaccine-related support to ADB’s DMCs.

“These countries have incurred considerable costs in preventing COVID-19 transmission, and their health systems have been put under extreme pressure,” said ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa. “These grants will provide a platform to introduce safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in these countries, strengthen health systems to receive and administer the vaccines, and raise community awareness about vaccination timetables.”

The grants will expand an existing ADB-supported vaccine program originally established to support the procurement of rotavirus, pneumococcal conjugate, and human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines through the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the four countries aims to help enable the gradual reopening of their economies and reestablish the free movement of people.