london a vaccine summit has raised billions of dollars to immunize children in developing countries as experts wrestled with how any potential vaccine against the coronavirus might be distributed globally and fairlythe united nations and the international red cross and red crescent movement have urged that a peoples vaccine be developed for covid19 that would be freely available to everyone calling it a moral imperativethursdays event hosted by britain raised 88 billion exceeding its target for the vaccines alliance gavi which says the funds will be used to vaccinate about 300 million children in dozens of countries against diseases like malaria pneumonia and hpvgavi also announced a new advance market commitment mechanism to enable developing countries to get any effective covid19 vaccine when available it hopes to raise an additional 2 billion for that effort to immunize health care workers as well as highrisk individuals and create a buffer of doses to be used where needed mostbut experts pointed out that the unprecedented pandemic where arguably every country will be clamoring for a vaccine may make efforts at fair distribution extremely messythe worldwide scramble for masks and ventilators that erupted in the early stages of the outbreak where france took over the countrys mask stocks so they could be given to first responders and others inside the country and the us apparently paid off shippers to redirect ventilators to the us are not encouraging signs that there will be much global cooperation if and when a coronavirus vaccine is availablerich countries will most likely try to push their way to the front of the queue leaving poorer countries at the back and thats a problem said jimmy whitworth a professor of international public health at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicinei cant imagine any country saying africas need is greater than ours so they can get the vaccine first and well remain vulnerablethe urgency of finding a way to stem outbreaks was evident as the worldwide total of reported virus cases reached 130398 on wednesday the highest oneday total so far according to a tally by johns hopkins universitybrazil reported yet another record number of deaths 1473 raising its toll above 34000 surpassing italy for the worlds thirddeadliest outbreak even though its still considered by experts a significant undercount due to insufficient testingindia reported a record number of infections 9304 with 260 deaths as its tally of fatalities surpassed 6000 and its number of infections rose to nearly 217000 the worlds seventhhighest neighboring pakistan reported over 4000 new cases as its confirmed infections surpassed neighboring china a spike that came weeks after prime minister imran khan overrode warnings from experts and eased a lockdownahead of the vaccine gathering philanthropist bill gates said there were potential solutions to the growing tide of vaccine nationalism exhibited when the ceo of sanofi suggested the us had a right to the first doses of any vaccine because of its significant investmentthe key to that challenge is having scale and having factories