E-Paper
Richer nations getting most Covid-19 jabs, rues WHO
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that on average, one in four people in rich countries have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, compared to only one in 500 people in low-income countries.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that over 87% of the more than 700 million doses of coronavirus vaccine that have been administered worldwide have been given in wealthier countries.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that on average, one in four people in rich countries have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, compared to only one in 500 people in low-income countries.
“There remains a shocking imbalance in the global distribution of vaccines,” Tedros told reporters on Friday.
He called COVAX, the UN-backed initiative to distribute vaccines fairly, “a strong mechanism that can deliver vaccines faster and more efficiently than any other mechanism”. He noted that COVAX so far has delivered about 38 million doses worldwide, or enough to cover about 0.25% of the global population.
Tedros criticised countries that plan to donate vaccines directly to other nations instead of going through COVAX. “These bilateral arrangements run the risk of fanning the flames of vaccine inequity,” he said, without explaining why donations that bypass COVAX were problematic.
Meanwhile, Europe’s vaccine roll-out faced multiple shocks on Friday as EU regulators said they were reviewing side effects of the Johnson & Johnson shot and France further limited its use of the AstraZeneca jab.
As Europe continues to reel from constant rows over AstraZeneca’s jab, the EU’s medicine regulator announced it would be probing a second jab over blood-clot concerns. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said four “serious cases” of unusual blood clots had been reported - one of them fatal - with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman said the government will draw up legislation to ensure that restrictions are imposed uniformly in regions with high coronavirus infection rates.
‘Vaccine nationalism’
China urged the international community to resist “vaccine nationalism” and to coordinate policy to make vaccines accessible for developing countries in order to contain the pandemic and for the sake of the global economy.
