WHO reiterates complaint about inequity in vaccine distribution

Geneva, Sep 14 (Prensa Latina) Inequity in the distribution of vaccines to fight Covid-19 is still an issue globally, director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

So far, more than 5.5 billion doses of vaccines have been administered on the planet, but almost 80 percent of them in high-income and upper-middle-income countries, he said.

WHO’s priority is to ensure that 10 percent of the population of each country is immunized by the end of September, 40 percent by the end of 2021 and 70 percent of populations by mid-2022.

He reiterated the position of the international entity to set an extension on the inoculation with booster doses until at least the end of this year.

We do not want, he said, the use of boosters for healthy people to spread, when so many health workers and people at risk around the world still await their first dose.

The striking inequity in the global distribution of vaccines is a stain on our global conscience’, the WHO director said.

Recently, the official stated that almost 90 percent of high-income countries have already reached the goal of vaccinating 10 percent of their population and even more than 70 or 40, but none of the low-income countries achieves either of the two objectives.

We do not want any more promises, we want vaccines, the head of the world health entity said, when denouncing that there is much talk of equality, but very little action is taken.

‘Rich countries have promised to donate more than a billion doses, but they have delivered less than 15 percent of that’, he said.

He stressed that precisely those unfulfilled promises are one of the reasons why the Covax mechanism, a WHO initiative for equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, announced on Wednesday the availability of only about 1.4 billion doses by the end of the year.

The figure is much lower than the two billion planned and, with this, it will barely be sufficient to vaccinate 20 percent of the population in the 92 poor countries to which injections should get this 2021.