Vaccines between rich and poor, WHO: “A scandalous imbalance”
The World Health Organization (WHO) had placed, at the beginning of the year, two goals by April 10, both were not met. The first was to start start the Coronavirus vaccination campaign in 220 countries around the world. Unfortunately, the goal was not achieved because in 14 countries there is not even a shadow of vaccines, as admitted by the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuscome “Some countries have not requested vaccines, others are not yet ready and others are planning to start in the next few weeks or perhaps months ”. The current vaccination situation thus registers 194 countries that have sent and another 12 will do so shortly.
The second goal failed is the non achieving distribution of 100 million doses as expected from the Covax program. Covax is the WHO, United Nations and Alliance for Vaccines (GAVI) project to ensure vaccines for developing countries. 2,000 million doses in the world was the goal, 80% of which in countries with great economic difficulties. Of these, nearly 40 million are doses of AstraZeneca. But the delays around the world are evident.
Tedros repeated that vaccination is still very uneven around the world. 87% were inoculated in richer countries and only 0.2% went to poor countries with a scandalous imbalance. “In high-income countries, on average, one in four people have already been vaccinated, while in poor countries only one in 500 has been immunized.”
Given this situation, the WHO Director confirmed that “the Organization is working on various options for accelerate production and supply. Among these: negotiations with the Indian government for the supply of vaccines through the Serum Institute, acceleration of the release of SK Bio vaccines in South Korea, acceleration of the delivery of the J&J vaccine and approval of the Sinopharm, Sinovac and Gamaleya vaccines ”.