COVID-19: WHO & its partners aim to supply 30 pc of needed jabs to Africa by February 2022

Making an urgent call for vaccine equity, particularly in Africa, the World Health Organisation(WHO) on Tuesday said that its global health partners will supply about 30 percent of vaccines by February 2022. Stressing that Africa has missed its goal of inoculating 60 percent of the population this year, the global health agency demanded that there shall be international cooperation on vaccine supply and access. Furthermore, the WHO  urged the countries worldwide to meet the vaccination target for 70 percent of the world population by mid- 2022. The WHO aims to vaccinate at least 10 percent of the population of every country by September, at least 40 percent by the end of the year, and 70 percent globally by the middle of next year, 2022, the global health agency stated in an official release. 

“More than 5.7 billion doses have been administered globally, but only 2 percent of those have been administered in Africa,” Director-General of WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

Outlining the widening vaccine disparity among the rich and poor countries, the WHO Chief added, “The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more the virus will keep circulating and changing, the longer the social and economic disruption will continue, and the higher the chances that more variants will emerge that render vaccines less effective.”

'World should spare no effort' says WHO

According to the WHO, almost 90 per cent of high-income countries have now reached the 10 percent of their COVID-19 vaccination target, and more than 70 percent have reached the 40 percent vaccination target. But not a single low-income country has reached either target. Worldwide, of the 5.5 billion vaccine doses that have been administered, 80 percent have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries. “High-income countries have now administered almost 100 doses for every 100 people," the WHO said. Low-income countries have only been able to administer 1.5 doses for every 100 people, due to lack of supply, the WHO reiterated, calling for global vaccine solidarity.

“The world should spare no effort to increase vaccine supply for lower-income countries,” it stressed, adding that all the barriers including scaling, manufacturing, waiving IP, freeing up supply chains, and technology transfer must be removed for fair distribution. The WHO Chief stressed that high-income countries pledged to donate more than 1 billion COVID-19 doses, but less than 15 percent of those doses have materialised.