IRELAND WILL PROVIDE €18 million towards a global effort to find a vaccine and effective treatments for Covid-19. 

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced today that Ireland would provide €18 million as part of a worldwide fund made up of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank and a host of other organisations. 

The funding is committed for use between 2021 and 2025.

“The only way we can defeat a global threat is by working together on a multilateral basis. Ireland and the European Union are committed to doing exactly that,” Varadkar said in a statement. 

“Working together we can develop an effective vaccine, effective treatments, testing systems that work, diagnostics and therapeutics. Ireland wants to play its part in this effort.

“Sooner or later we will defeat this virus. We will develop the vaccine that prevents it and the medicines that treat the disease. It is really important that nobody in the world is left out when that happens,” he said. 

Ireland has now committed €78 million to tackling Covid-19. 

The global effort, with vaccines and treatments being worked on in labs around the world, is expensive. Ireland’s funding will go towards supporting multi-lateral organisations such as the World Health Organizaton, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund. 

World leaders are seeking to raise €7.5 billion for research into a vaccine and treatments for coronavirus.