Geneva: Reiterating that currently, 116 countries are still off track for the target of vaccinating 70% of the population of every country by the middle of this year, World Health Organization stated today that in many countries, the issues were not primarily a problem of absorptive capacity.
“We need to urgently support political leaders to accelerate the rollout of vaccines,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the COVID-19 Global Action Meeting today.
The D-G said in some countries, high vaccine coverage, combined with the lower severity of Omicron, was driving a false narrative that the pandemic is over. However, he said, at the same time, low vaccine coverage and low testing rates in other countries were creating the ideal conditions for new variants to emerge.
“We can bring the pandemic under control this year – but we are at increased risk of squandering that opportunity,” he warned.
Dr. Ghebreyesus made three requests at the meeting:
- “First, to vaccinate the world, we ask all countries to support WHO’s global target of 70%.
- “Second, to save lives now, we ask all countries to contribute their fair share to fully fund the ACT Accelerator, especially for the immediate need of US$ 16 billion.
- “Third, we need to support models such as the mRNA technology transfer hub in South Africa and its network of spokes around the world, to build capacity for controlling COVID-19 and other preventable diseases.”
He said he had just returned from South Africa yesterday, where he saw first-hand the progress underway at the WHO mRNA vaccine technology transfer Hub , the collaborative work being done there by the vaccine developers, including Afrigen, Biovac, and the Biomedical Research Institute at Stellenbosch University.
“The commitment from the government and the private sector is real. This historic initiative comes at a critical time,” he said.
Through the ACT Accelerator and the COVAX pillar and our partnership with UNICEF, WHO is now overcoming some of the supply and delivery constraints it faced last year, with more than 1 billion vaccine doses shipped. The D-G said WHO welcomed the ongoing engagement of all countries represented here today, the lines of effort proposed by the United States, and continued alignment with the ACT Accelerator and the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT).
Fostering local vaccine manufacturing capacity throughout the globe, supplemented by temporary intellectual property waivers for COVID-19 tools, will help bring this pandemic to an end and keep us all safer, he said. He stressed that by working together, across the public and private sectors, “we can bring the pandemic under control and drive an inclusive and sustainable recovery”.
– global bihari bureau
