A call for vaccine solidarity
Mass vaccination against Covid-19 is well underway. More than 200 million dozes have been administered across 92 countries, in the largest global immunization effort in history. But vaccines are not equally distributed between countries. They are reaching high income countries at great speed, while the world’s poorest are still waiting for their first dozes to arrive.
"Science is succeeding — but solidarity is failing."
“We are seeing a vaccine vacuum”, UN Secretary General António Guterres said earlier this week. He said 75 per cent of all vaccinations took place in only ten countries and called for greater solidarity from the world’s leading economy. “Now is the time”, he said, warning that what he called “vaccinationalism” would delay global recovery.
Realizing that no country is safe until the whole world is safe, leaders of some of the richest countries in world, the G7 reinforced their support for international cooperation on health response to Covid-19 in at virtual meeting last Friday. They increased their financial support to the vaccine cooperation ACT-A and COVAX, the international financial system set up to secure vaccine distribution to low-income countries. At the same time, the EU doubled its contribution. The UK, Canada, Rane, Norway and the European Union also committed to sharing vaccine surplus with developing countries.
The Director-General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, thanked the countries for their support but emphasized that more funding was needed to reach the goal of distributing at least 1,3 billion vaccine dozes to vulnerable states in the next months.
"“We can turn a corner on this pandemic by funding the only global solution to end it.”"
Share: