Geneva: Out of 220 countries and economies, 194 have now started vaccination. Of the 26 nations that have not yet started vaccination, seven have received vaccines and could start, and a further five countries should receive their vaccines in the coming days. That leaves 14 countries who have not yet begun vaccination, for a range of reasons. Some have not requested vaccines through COVAX, some are not yet ready, and some plan to start in the coming weeks and months.
“As you know, at the beginning of the year we issued a call for vaccination to begin in all countries within the first 100 days of the year. Tomorrow is day 100, World Health Organisation Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reminded today.
“It’s stunning to think that less than a year after the ACT [Access to COVID-19 Tools] Accelerator was launched, vaccines have been approved and vaccination has started in almost all countries,” he said.
However, he emphasized on the word “start” and pointed out that most countries do not have anywhere near enough vaccines to cover all health workers, or all at-risk groups, never mind the rest of their populations.
COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) had been expecting to distribute almost 100 million doses by the end of March, but due to a marked reduction in supply, it had only been able to distribute 38 million doses. “We hope to be able to catch up during April and May,” Dr. Ghebreyesus told journalists here.
He pointed out at the “shocking imbalance” in the global distribution of vaccines and informed that while more than 700 million vaccine doses had been administered globally, over 87% had gone to high income or upper middle-income countries, while low income countries had received just 0.2%. On average in high-income countries, almost one in four people has received a vaccine. In low-income countries, it’s one in more than 500.
The WHO D-G warned countries and companies which planned to do their own bilateral vaccine donations, bypassing COVAX for their own political or commercial reasons that these bilateral arrangements ran the risk of fanning the flames of vaccine inequity. “This is a time for partnership, not patronage,” he said.
Calling COVAX a strong mechanism that can distribute vaccines faster and more efficiently than any other mechanism, he said the problem was not getting vaccines out of COVAX, but the problem was getting them in.
The WHO stated that scarcity of supply is driving vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy. Hence Gavi, WHO, CEPI and other COVAX partners were working on several options for accelerating production and supply.
“We’re in ongoing discussions with the Government of India about the supply of vaccines from the Serum Institute of India;We’re working to accelerate the release and rollout of vaccines from SK Bio in the Republic of Korea; We’re trying to expedite the delivery of the J&J vaccine; We’re continuing to seek donations of doses from countries who have enough to cover their entire populations several times over – not in several months’ time, but now; We’re expediting the review of more vaccines including from Sinopharm, Sinovac and Gamaleya; And we’re in discussions with several countries as we seek to expand global manufacturing capacity,” he said.
He said that even as the WHO worked to expand access to vaccines, it was continuing to keep a close eye on vaccine safety. He referred to the claims of the European Medicines Agency and the Medicines and other Health Products Agency from the United Kingdom that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as very rare side effects of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. He reiterated that the COVID-19 subcommittee of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety had reviewed available information from Europe and other regions and had said that a causal relationship between the vaccine and the occurrence of blood clots with low platelets is plausible, but more investigation is required.
“WHO, EMA and MHRA continue to recommend that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risk of these very rare side effects. All vaccines and medicines carry a risk of side effects. In this case, the risks of severe disease and death from COVID-19 are many times higher than the very small risks related to the vaccine,” he said and appealed to all people to be careful. “Vaccines are giving us light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re not there yet. And vaccines are only one of the many tools we have to prevent infections and save lives. The right approach is a comprehensive approach. We must all continue to protect ourselves and those around us by making the right choices. We all have responsibilities, as individuals and leaders, in ending this pandemic,” he said.
– global bihari bureau
