Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Google to fund 250,000 vaccines for the Philippines and select countries

As Google’s ongoing commitment to vaccine equity, Google.org has announced to fund vaccines for 250,000 people in several countries including the Philippines, through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that leads the COVAX vaccine facility with the World Health Organization to ensure equitable vaccine access globally. Other beneficiaries include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, India, and Laos.

“The presence of vaccines gives us hope that we may be nearing the end of the pandemic but barriers to equitable access exist especially in low- and middle-income countries. We hope that through Google’s efforts and partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, we can help more people from countries needing to be vaccinated. We also remain committed to help build public trust in vaccines through raising up timely and trusted information on Search, YouTube and the rest of our products and platforms as we take down harmful and misleading content,” said Bernadette Nacario, Google Philippines Country Director.

Google will also be leading an employee-giving campaign to secure more vaccine shots with the Gavi Matching Fund and Google.org matching the donation to triple the impact. This is in response to Gavi’s drive for additional funding to provide more countries launched on April 15.

To date, the Philippines has already given more than 1.7 million vaccine doses and fully vaccinated more than 213,000 people, according to the scientific publication Our World in Data.

Google.org will also provide Gavi technical assistance to accelerate global distribution as part of its continued efforts to provide correct and reliable vaccine-related insights. Google is also committing USD 250 million in ad grants to government and public health organizations including the WHO.

This amounts to 2.5 million public service announcements meant to reach more people.

In the Philippines, Google has taken part in the Department of Health’s #ChecktheFAQs campaign together with other tech companies to fight vaccine misinformation alongside taking down harmful and misleading content.

Stay tuned to our page for more updates.

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