On Tuesday, the World Health Organization encouraged the 20 world leaders who have the authority to change the “disgraceful” worldwide disparity in access to Covid-19 vaccines to do so before October.
Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization said the world should be “disgusted,” and wondered if the situation could have been much worse if there had been a concerted campaign to prevent the world’s poor from getting vaccinated.
The United Nations’ health agency has grown increasingly enraged by what it considers to be the moral outrage of wealthy countries hoarding vaccine supplies while developing countries struggle to immunize their most vulnerable people.
Aylward, the WHO’s point person for getting access to tools to fight the coronavirus epidemic, asked people to persuade governments and corporate leaders that increasing vaccine coverage in poorer countries was both electorally and financially safe.
He told a WHO social media live interaction that “there are maybe 20 persons in the world who are key to tackling this equitable challenge.”
“They are in charge of the main firms in charge of this; they are in charge of the countries that contract for the majority of the world’s vaccines, as well as the countries that make them.
“We need those 20 people to say, “By the end of September, we’re going to address this problem.” We’re going to make sure that 10% of the population in each country is vaccinated.'”
According to an AFP count, about 4.5 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.
According to the World Bank, 104 doses per 100 persons have been injected in high-income nations. Only two treatments per 100 persons have been given in the 29 lowest-income countries.
“We should all be disgusted with ourselves,” Aylward remarked.
“I can’t help but wonder if withholding immunizations from some parts of the world would have made things worse than they are now.
“We need 20 people to spearhead the global campaign to reverse the shameful predicament we’ve found ourselves in.”
By the end of September, the WHO expects every country to have vaccinated at least 10% of its people; at least 4% must have been vaccinated.
