The Bupa Foundation has announced it is joining forces with UNICEF Australia to support its VaccinAid campaign that is raising funds to support the delivery of two billion doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to developing countries.
The Bupa Foundation will donate $5 for every Bupa employee across its Asia-Pacific business who is fully vaccinated by 31 December 2021.
It said this amount is equivalent to the cost of providing a full COVID-19 vaccination by UNICEF to health workers, teachers, social workers and the most vulnerable.
Along with the two billion COVID-19 vaccine doses, UNICEF is also aiming to source 5.5 million treatments and 5.6 million test kits for distribution around the world.
Bupa Asia-Pacific’s CEO, Hisham El-Ansary, said the VaccinAid campaign is one of the biggest health and logistics projects in history and an important initiative to protect some of the most vulnerable communities and people in the world.
“This initiative is part of the ongoing support we are providing our people to get vaccinated as soon as they are eligible,” said Mr El-Ansary.
“More than 94% of our aged care team members across Australia have had their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with a number of homes already at 100%. We strongly support national and international COVID-19 vaccination programs as a critical pathway to keeping communities safe, reducing the severity of infection and lightening the load on local health systems.”
The Bupa Foundation recently donated $50,000 to UNICEF Australia to help support frontline efforts in response to the COVID-19 crisis in India.
UNICEF Australia’s CEO Tony Stuart said, “As we continue to deal with the global pandemic, it is important that we work together to help vaccinate the world and care about the community around us.
“UNICEF is leading the most complex vaccination challenge in history, supporting a global and equitable approach to the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines. Private sector support is critical to enabling the urgent and ongoing rollout of the vaccine in low to middle income countries and we are so pleased to have Bupa unite to contribute to vaccine equity.”
Mr El-Ansary added, “As a health and care company, with operations around the world, we have a responsibility to support action that promotes better health and wellbeing outcomes for all people and communities, now and into the future."