Two billion vaccines for the poorest | L …

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the GAVI immunization alliance announced on Friday that they will start sending doses of covid-19 vaccines to countries with fewer resources in the first quarter of 2021, as part of the instrument created so that immunization against the coronavirus is distributed fairly.

This mechanism, dubbed Covax, “has managed to collect around 2 billion” of doses, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference. “The light at the end of the tunnel is a little brighter,” said the head of the United Nations health agency, quoted by the AFP news agency.

In a statement, the WHO and the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, an association that funds vaccines and accelerates their distribution in the poorest countries of the world, said it was already possible to “plan the first deliveries of vaccines for the first quarter 2021, with the distribution of the first batch of doses.

This first phase of distribution will be followed by another in the second half of 2021 in all countries that make up the Covax program, an innovative global collaborative initiative to accelerate test development and production, sponsored by GAVI.

“Today’s announcements offer the clearest path yet to end the acute phase of the pandemic, protecting the world’s most vulnerable population groups,” the statement said.

The two organizations stressed that this delivery plan will depend on several factors, such as the approval of the corresponding regulations and the level of preparedness of the countries.