Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, announced on Sunday that they will collaborate to help Gavi manage critical information to equitably distribute approximately two billion coronavirus vaccines to 190 countries by the end of 2021. Fair, rapid and equitable access to vaccines is critical to ending the global pandemic. Public-private partnerships, such as Gavi, which are focused on getting vaccines to some of the world's poorest countries, need to be armed with data and technology to facilitate distribution at scale. The ability to manage huge volumes of country data is essential. In June, Gavi and other partners launched COVAX, a global alliance whose goal is to ensure that people in all corners of the world get access to COVID-19 vaccines, regardless of their wealth. COVAX will achieve this by supporting the research, development and manufacturing of a wide range of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, and also negotiating pricing and distribution for the 190 countries that have joined the alliance to date. Gavi needs a single source of truth to help them understand how many vaccines are needed and where. Salesforce Work.com for Vaccines, Experience Cloud and Nonprofit Cloud will power Gavi's COVAX country engagement platform, which will help them manage critical information. Salesforce is enabling COVAX to move quickly to support fast access to vaccines with a single, secure portal that all participating countries can use to communicate and share information, such as vaccine requirements and access reports. Lower-income countries that are eligible for support by COVAX, will use the portal to provide information to facilitate planning of doses to be rolled out. Higher-income, self-financing countries participating in COVAX will use the portal to get updates about their financial position as that changes over time. "The scale and urgency of the COVAX mission calls for tools we can expand quickly and use to manage what has become one of the largest and most complex undertakings ever in global health," said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi. "With our colleagues at Salesforce, we will establish the backbone that allows COVAX participants and partners to share essential information and communicate with greater efficiency and accountability. The partnership will give people worldwide, especially in the poorest countries, access to vaccines that help protect them from COVID-19 and stem the continuing catastrophic social and economic disruption the pandemic has already left in its wake." "We're thrilled to continue our work with Gavi as they embark on one of the largest and most rapid vaccine distribution campaigns of our lifetime," said Rob Acker, CEO at Salesforce.org. "Leveraging innovative technologies has always been a shared vision of Salesforce.org and Gavi. Now, we are arming 190 countries and economies with the platform they need to communicate critical information around COVID-19 vaccine requirements and equitable distribution for as many as two billion vaccines by the end of 2021."
