“Shocking imbalance”: WHO mechanism for vaccine distribution in stalls

LONDON.- Up to 60 countries, including some of the world’s poorest, could stay stuck on the first dose of vaccination against the coronavirus because almost all shipments in the global program designed to help them are on hold until June.

Last week, Covax, the global initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) that provides vaccines to nations lacking the power to negotiate the purchase of scarce supplies on their own, it shipped over 25,000 doses to low-income countries twice a day. Deliveries have practically been suspended since Monday.

In all, in the last 15 days, according to data compiled daily by Unicef, Less than two million doses have been authorized by COVAX in 92 developing countries, the same amount administered in Britain alone.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus on Friday criticized the “Shocking imbalance” in the global vaccination against Covid-19. Tedros said that while one in four people in rich countries was vaccinated, only one in 500 people had received a dose in the poorest countries.

The shortage of vaccines is mainly due to India’s decision to stop exporting those made at the Serum Institute, hence the vast majority of AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford that Covax planned to supply about a third of the world’s population at a time when infections are rebounding around the world.

Covax will only distribute vaccines approved by the WHO and countries are increasingly impatient. Supplies run out for some of the program’s first beneficiaries, and the delivery of the second dose within the recommended 12 week timeframe is now in question. The immunization alliance known as GAVI told The Associated Press that 60 countries are affected by the delays.

Agitation

In the vaccination tents set up at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, Many of those who were inoculated for the first time did not know when the second dose would come.

“My fear is that if I don’t get the second dose my immune system will weaken and I could die as a result.”said Oscar Odinga, who works as a civil servant.

WHO internal documents obtained by AP show uncertainty over childbirth many countries lose confidence in [la iniciativa] Covax ”. This leads the United Nations health agency to consider accelerating its support for the vaccines from China and Russia, which have not received the green light from any regulator in Europe and North America.

According to WHO documentation, the agency is receiving questions from Covax participants about allocations, in addition to “the uncertainty as to whether everyone who was vaccinated in the first round is guaranteed a second. dose”.

The WHO declined to respond specifically to questions raised in internal reports, but had previously said that countries are “very interested” in receiving vaccines as soon as possible and he insisted that he had heard no complaints about the process.

Concern about the relationship between AstraZeneca and the appearance of unusual thrombi too “Created nervousness around its safety and efficiency”, stressed the WHO. Among its solutions is the decision to “ expedite the examination of additional products ” from China and Russia.

The WHO said last month it could give the green light to Chinese drugs by the end of April.

Chinese vaccine reports

Some experts point out that the two Chinese-made vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac, have not released their data and that people would need a third dose to be protected.

“If we are missing something by not fully assessing the risks of serious adverse effects from these vaccines, it would undermine confidence in all of these good products that we use and that we know are safe,” said Dora Curry. , director of health rights and equality. CARE International.

Other experts are fearing that delays could erode trust in governments that have been particularly effective in their immunization programs and that they expected to receive the second dose soon.

“Without high immunization coverage around the world, we risk prolonging the pandemic for several years,” said Lavanya Vasudevan, assistant professor at the Duke University Institute for Global Health. “Every day that the virus is in circulation is an opportunity for it to mutate into a more deadly variant.”

Earlier this month, WHO has called on rich countries to urgently share 10 million doses and thus achieve the UN target of starting vaccination against Covid-19 in all countries of the world in the first 100 days of the ‘year.. As of now, hundreds of millions of dollars have been pledged for Covax, but there are no doses to buy and no one immediately offered to share the ones they have.

Bilateral vaccine donations tend to be made on the basis of political ideologies, rather than to countries with a higher infection rate, and are not sufficient to meet the goals set by Covax.

Think Global Health, a data website run by the Council on Foreign Relations, found that 19 countries that gave a total of 27.5 million doses to 102 countries on Thursday.

Outside the vaccination tents in Nairobi, infectious disease specialist Dr Duncan Nyukuri tried to reassure vaccinators for the first time on Thursday.

“If you get the first dose but can’t get the second, it doesn’t mean your body will be weaker or have a greater risk of getting an infection,” he said. “It assumes that your body will have developed some immunity to the coronavirus infection. But this immunity is not as good as in someone who received both doses, ”he added.

AP Agency

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