Over 55 countries have yet to meet the 10% immunization target

About nine months after the arrival of the vaccines versus Covid-19, dozens of countries have not yet vaccinated 10% of their population, a step considered crucial to reduce an obvious access gap.

This 2021, the holder of World Health Organization (WHO) he called for urgent action to achieve this goal by the end of September. But more than 55 countries still have not reached the target, illustrating the problems the distribution program has faced. Covax in its commitment to bring vaccines to the four corners of the planet.

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Covax It reduced its supply projection for 2021 in September, limited by production delays, export bans and measures taken by rich countries to protect their own people first. Program partners requested the countries that they already have enough doses to speed up donations and make way for them, and urged the Business be more transparent in their agreements supply.

“Manufacturers have made the decision not to ship supplies to Covax, and high-income countries have made the decision not to get enough doses to these places fast enough, ”he said in an interview. Bruce aylward, Senior Advisor to WHO. “There’s no way to paint it pink.”

To defenders of health rights They fear that the slow pace of distribution around the world will prolong the pandemic and increase the risk of the emergence of more worrying variants. When deliveries to the regions of low income start to increase, getting people vaccinated will be another challenge.

WHO’s goal in coronavirus vaccination

In May, the Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for accelerating until September to immunize an additional 250 million people in low- and middle-income countries in just four months. The goal is to reach at least 40% of the world population by the end of the year and 70% by the middle of next year.

While the program Covax had difficulty accessing doses, many rich countries have moved forward. Less than 4% of people living in low-income countries are vaccinated with at least one dose, which contrasts with around 61% in high-income countries, according to UN data.

“Failure to achieve this goal should be reason enough to draw attention to this problem,” he said. Aylward.

Many countries below 10% are not even close, according to the tracking system Bloomberg Vaccine Tracking, which shows that a large part of the Sub-Saharan Africa it does not reach 1%. More than two dozen countries are below 2%.

About 56% of Americans you have already completed your immunization schedule. The UK reaches 67% and Canada, at around 71%, while Portugal, at 84%, has the highest percentage of people with their full immunization program among countries with populations over 1 million.

While, Covax it did not meet its targets because, as of September 27, it had delivered only 311 million doses to more than 140 countries. The effort was hampered by delays in shipments from a key vaccine manufacturer: Serum Institute of India. At the start of the year, India It halted exports to deal with a devastating national outbreak, but the country is now expected to resume shipments to Covax from the quarter starting in October.

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Covax also mentioned the challenges in manufacturing plants that have affected the vaccine supply of Johnson & johnson and AstraZeneca Plc.

Last week the president Joe biden he said that EE.UU. buy 500 million additional doses of vaccine from Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE will donate overseas, bringing the total US donation commitment to over 1.1 billion doses. But so far, wealthy governments have delivered a meager amount of the supplies they promised poorer countries, and some are forging ahead with plans to administer booster doses in a race to fight the disease. sickness. delta variant.

“Science says that the most important thing is to manage dose to people who haven’t received it, wherever they are, ”Aylward said.