A full access package includes WHO policy guidance on the use of antigen based rapid diagnostic tests manufacturer volume guarantees for low and middle income countries catalytic funding to assist governments to deploy the tests and an initial US 50 million procurement fund Several rapid point of care antigen tests are being assessed by WHO for Emergency Use Listing EUL Agreements between the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and test manufacturers Abbott and SD Biosensor make available innovative tests priced at a maximum of US 5 for low and middle income countries LMICs The Global Fund commits an initial US 50 million to enable countries to purchase the new tests with the first orders expected to be placed this week Expedited market introduction of these tests in multiple LMICs is being supported through the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Africa CDC Unitaid FIND CHAI and their partners This is the latest move from the Access to COVID 19 Tools ACT Accelerator to develop procure and distribute critical new tools to fight the pandemic new tests are urgently needed to meet the huge unmet needs for testing worldwide A set of agreements to make available for low and middle income countries affordable high quality COVID 19 antigen rapid tests were today announced by the Access to COVID 19 Tools ACT Accelerator Organizations involved in the milestone agreement include the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Africa CDC the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation the Clinton Health Access Initiative CHAI the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics FIND the Global Fund Unitaid and the World Health Organization WHO As part of this comprehensive end to end effort the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation has executed separate volume guarantee agreements with rapid diagnostic test RDT producers Abbott and SD Biosensor These two arrangements will make available to LMICs 120 million antigen rapid diagnostic tests Ag RDTs priced at a maximum of US 5 per unit over a period of six months These tests provide results in 15 30 minutes rather than hours or days and will enable expansion of testing particularly in countries that do not have extensive laboratory facilities or trained health workers to implement molecular polymerase chain reaction or PCR tests The tests developed by Abbott and SD Biosensor are highly portable reliable and easy to administer making testing possible in near person decentralized healthcare settings Both companies tests are faster and cheaper than laboratory based tests enabling countries to increase the pace of testing tracing and treating people for COVID 19 at the point of care particularly in areas with under resourced health systems A number of other Ag RDTs are at various stages of development and assessment To scale up the Ag RDTs the Global Fund today announced that it has made available an initial US 50 million from its COVID 19 Response Mechanism to enable countries to purchase at least 10 million of the new rapid tests for LMICs at the guaranteed price with the first orders expected to be placed this week through the Global Fund s pooled procurement mechanism FIND and WHO are working together to accelerate appropriate use by supporting implementation research that will optimize Ag RDT use in multiple LMICs in line with WHO guidance This includes provision of catalytic volumes of tests to understand how Ag RDTs can best fit into health systems Unitaid and Africa CDC will combine resources to initiate the roll out of these tests in up to 20 countries in Africa starting in October 2020 This multi million dollar intervention currently undergoing final sign off by their Boards is designed to engage multiple partners active in the COVID 19 response in these countries such as CHAI African Society for Laboratory Medicine ASLM and local organizations This will bolster efforts by the African Union s Partnership to Accelerate COVID 19 Testing PACT initiative launched in August 2020 to mobilize experts community workers supplies and other resources to minimize the impact of the pandemic on the African continent by testing tracing and treating COVID 19 cases in a timely manner Testing is a critical cornerstone of the COVID 19 response enabling countries to trace and contain the virus now and to prepare for the roll out of vaccines once available Effective testing strategies rely on a portfolio of test types that can be used in different settings and situations While molecular tests started to be rolled out within a month of the virus being sequenced these tests are mainly laboratory based relying on infrastructure and trained personnel to conduct them Rapid tests to detect the presence of the virus at the point of care which are faster and cheaper are a vital addition to the testing arsenal needed to contain and fight COVID 19 WHO guidance published on 11 September 2020 highlights the value of these tests in areas where community transmission is widespread and where nucleic acid amplification based diagnostic NAAT testing is either unavailable or where test results are significantly delayed As well as supporting test trace isolate strategies the tests can help identify or confirm new outbreaks support outbreak investigations through screening monitor disease trends and potentially test asymptomatic contacts The ACT Accelerator Diagnostics Pillar is co convened by FIND and the Global Fund working closely with WHO and over 30 global health expert partners to accelerate innovation and overcome the technical financial and political obstacles to achieving equitable access to effective and timely testing Such unprecedented global collaboration has enabled development and deployment of the first WHO EUL approved Ag RDT within eight months of the first identification of the virus In comparison it took nearly five years to develop the first RDT for HIV Several more antigen RDTs for COVID 19 are currently under WHO EUL review Overall the ACT Accelerator Diagnostic Pillar aims to facilitate the supply of 500 million tests to LMICs within 12 months These agreements are critical to fulfil the key objective of the ACT Accelerator to ensure all countries regardless of income have fair access to new tests and tools to fight COVID 19 The exceptional speed with which the Ag RDT access package has been created demonstrates the breadth of the impact of the ACT Accelerator initiative and this and future achievements in testing will complement similar milestones anticipated to emerge from the Vaccines and Therapeutics Pillars Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Director General of WHO said High quality rapid tests show us where the virus is hiding which is key to quickly tracing and isolating contacts and breaking the chains of transmission The tests are a critical tool for governments as they look to reopen economies and ultimately save both lives and livelihoods Mark Suzman Chief Executive Officer of the Gates Foundation said Testing is an essential tool in the fight against COVID 19 We are delighted to join a partnership that will help ensure that the latest high quality diagnostics do not just go to the highest bidder but will be available at an affordable price to the world s lower income countries In addition all of the actions announced today point to the growing success of the ACT Accelerator in catalyzing global cooperation for a fair and effective response to this global crisis Dr Iain Barton Chief Executive Officer of CHAI said These agreements will help ensure that millions of people in low and middle income countries have access to high quality rapid testing in villages and towns as well as cities This has the potential to revolutionize government s ability to respond to the pandemic enabling quick diagnosis and response to contain localized virus outbreaks before they spread Andrea F Wainer Executive Vice President of Abbott s rapid and molecular diagnostics businesses said Abbott is pleased to bring our Panbio COVID 19 rapid antigen test and Sympheos digital solution to people and health authorities in low and middle income countries through this innovative partnership We have long been committed to making sure our life changing technologies are affordable and accessible and for decades have been supporting many of these countries with our rapid tests for malaria HIV hepatitis and other deadly infectious diseases Hyo Keun Lee Chief Executive Officer of SD Biosensor said We SD Biosensor are pleased to supply our STANDARD Q COVID 19 rapid antigen tests for people who really need fast and accurate COVID 19 diagnosis Through this partnership we will keep striving do our best to provide the best quality of COVID 19 antigen rapid kits for fighting COVID 19 Dr John Nkengasong Director of the Africa CDC said Antigen tests are an important complement to PCR testing and are crucial to expand testing capacity throughout Africa The beauty of antigen testing is that it is fast and gives quick results It will allow healthcare workers to quickly isolate cases and treat them while tracing their contacts to cut the transmission chain Dr Philippe Duneton Unitaid s Executive Director a i said Access to these point of care rapid tests with be a game changer in the fight against COVID 19 We are working to support countries to rapidly deploy and use these new tests in the best possible way Today s news shows what the ACT A partners working together can deliver in our efforts against the COVID 19 pandemic Dr Carolyn Gomes Special Advisor for the Board ProActividad Jamaica and Alternate Board Member Developing Country NGOs The Global Fund Ensuring equitable access to rapid diagnostic tests is essential for controlling COVID 19 in all countries and to opening up economies across the world Ensuring an affordable price is a major step forward Tests that can be used at the point of care by front line workers will greatly facilitate community access to testing To ensure equity in access for those who need it most there will need to be much greater support of the ACT Accelerator and the Diagnostics Pillar in particular Much more money is needed to meet the needs of the most vulnerable Peter Sands Executive Director of the Global Fund said This is the ACT Accelerator in action It is proof that by working together at a massive global scale we can develop and deploy a vital new tool to help contain and fight the pandemic This is not just a new test it s the money and the deployment plan to get it to where it s needed fast This is the power of global collaboration Dr Catharina Boehme Chief Executive Officer of FIND said With this Ag RDT package the ACT Accelerator partners have secured much needed tools for LMICs to dramatically increase COVID 19 testing With the financial support of several countries we have made great progress but to ensure we reach all those who need testing and bring the prices down we urgently need substantial funding from public philanthropic and multilateral sources About the ACT Accelerator The Access to COVID 19 Tools ACT Accelerator is a new ground breaking global collaboration to accelerate the development production and equitable access to COVID 19 tests treatments and vaccines It was set up in response to a call from G20 leaders in March 2020 and launched by WHO the European Commission France and the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation in April 2020 The ACT Accelerator is not a decision making body or a new organization but works to speed up collaborative efforts among existing organizations to end the pandemic It is a framework for collaboration that has been designed to bring key players around the table with the goal of ending the pandemic as quickly as possible through the accelerated development equitable allocation and scaled up delivery of tests treatments and vaccines thereby protecting health systems and restoring societies and economies in the near term It draws on the experience of leading global health organizations which are tackling the world s toughest health challenges and who by working together are able to unlock new and more ambitious results against COVID 19 Its members share a commitment to ensure all people have access to all the tools needed to defeat COVID 19 and to work with unprecedented levels of partnership to achieve it The ACT Accelerator has four areas of work diagnostics therapeutics vaccines and the health system connector Cross cutting all of these is the workstream on Access Allocation The Diagnostics Pillar of the ACT Accelerator is focused on ensuring that everyone who needs a test can get one Workstreams span research and development market readiness procurement and country preparedness Achievements to date include laboratory trainings in partnership with Africa CDC in early February and a suite of online courses deployed within weeks Nearly 20 million tests have been procured with the Diagnostics Consortium ensuring diagnostic access for LMICs and readiness for test and treat implementation in these countries Independent evaluations of antibody tests are also being conducted as high quality antibody tests are essential to understand population immunity for future vaccine roll out For information about WHO s Emergency Use Listing https www who int diagnostics laboratory EUL en https www who int diagnostics laboratory 201002 eul sars cov2 product list pdf