A donor conference to raise money for the Covax vaccine program for poorer countries has raised nearly $2.4 billion.

President Jose Manuel Barroso of the international organization Gavi, which co-initiated Covax, has announced this. The counter now stands at almost 9.6 billion dollars.

Barroso thanked the donors for their “tremendous generosity”. According to him, a big step has been taken to protect the world population.

The digital summit was organized by Japan, which also expressed satisfaction. The goal of raising $2 billion on Wednesday to secure a total of 1.8 billion doses of vaccine by the end of this year has been surpassed. So far, 132 million doses have been delivered.

Several pharmaceutical companies are selling vaccines to the Covax program, which is supported by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Through this initiative, 77 million doses of vaccines have been delivered to 127 countries since February, mainly those from AstraZeneca. More than 800 million dollars have been collected separately for the delivery of the vaccines.