Africa: struggling economies, growing inequalities and millions of vulnerable people – the urgent need for vaccine equity

Others



[ad_1]

Health leaders agree that a world without COVID-19 will not be possible until everyone has equal access to vaccines. More than 4.6 million people have died from the virus since it swept the world since the start of 2020, but the death rate is expected to slow if more people are vaccinated.

Developed countries are much more likely to immunize their citizens, which risks prolonging the pandemic and deepening global inequalities. Ahead of a dialogue at the UN Monday between senior UN officials, UN News explains the importance of equity in vaccines.

What is vaccine equity?

Quite simply, this means that all people, wherever they are in the world, should have equal access to a vaccine that offers protection against COVID-19 infection.

WHO has set a global target of 70% of the population of all countries to be vaccinated by mid-2022, but to achieve this goal, more equitable access to vaccines will be needed.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said vaccine equity is “not rocket science, nor charity. It is smart public health and in the ‘interest of all’.

Why is this so important?

Besides the ethical argument that no country or citizen more deserves another, no matter how wealthy or poor, an infectious disease like COVID-19 will remain a global threat, as long as it exists anywhere in the world.

The inequitable distribution of vaccines not only leaves millions or billions of people vulnerable to the deadly virus, it also allows even more deadly variants to emerge and spread across the world.

In addition, unequal distribution of vaccines will exacerbate inequalities and exaggerate the gap between rich and poor and reverse decades of hard-won progress in human development.

According to the UN, vaccine inequity will have a lasting impact on socio-economic recovery in low and lower middle income countries and will delay progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to the UNDP, eight in ten people plunged into poverty directly by the pandemic are expected to live in the world’s poorest countries by 2030.

Estimates also suggest that the economic impacts of COVID-19 could last until 2024 in low-income countries, while high-income countries could achieve pre-COVID-19 GDP per capita growth rates. here the end of this year.

Does it work?

Not according to Dr Tedros, who said in April this year that “vaccine equity is the challenge of our time … and we are failing.”

Research suggests that enough vaccines will be produced in 2021 to cover 70% of the world’s 7.8 billion population. However, most vaccines are reserved for rich countries, while other vaccine-producing countries restrict the export of doses so that they can ensure that their own citizens get vaccinated first, an approach that has been qualified as “vaccine nationalism”. The decision by some countries to give already vaccinated citizens a booster vaccine, rather than prioritizing doses for unvaccinated people in poorer countries was highlighted as an example of this trend.

Yet the good news, according to WHO data, is that as of September 15, more than 5.5 billion doses have been administered worldwide, although since most of the available vaccines require two injections, the number of people protected is much lower. .

Which countries are receiving the vaccines at the moment?

Simply put, rich countries receive the majority of vaccines, with many poor countries struggling to vaccinate even a small number of citizens.

According to the Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity (compiled by UNDP, WHO and the University of Oxford) as of September 15, only 3.07% of people in low-income countries have been vaccinated with at least one dose, compared to 60.18% in high income countries. -income countries.

The UK vaccination rate for people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine is around 70.92%, while in the US currently stands at 65.2%. Other high- and middle-income countries are not doing as well; New Zealand only vaccinated 31.97% of its relatively small population of around five million, although Brazil is now at 63.31%. However, the statistics for some of the world’s poorest countries are grim. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, only 0.09% of the population received a dose; in Papua New Guinea and Venezuela, the rate is 1.15% and 20.45% respectively.

Find more country specific data here.

What is the price of a vaccine?

UNICEF data shows that the average cost of a COVID-19 vaccine is $ 2- $ 37 (there are 24 vaccines that have been approved by at least one national regulatory authority) and the estimated cost of distribution. per person is $ 3.70. This places a significant financial burden on low-income countries, where, according to the UNDP, the average annual health expenditure per capita is $ 41.

According to the Vaccine Equity Dashboard, without immediate global financial support, low-income countries would need to increase their health spending by 57% to meet the goal of immunizing 70% of their citizens.

What has the UN done to promote more equitable access to vaccines?

WHO and UNICEF have worked with other organizations to establish and manage the COVID-19 Global Vaccine Access Center, known as COVAX. Launched in April 2020, the WHO called it a “revolutionary global collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines.”

Its objective is to guarantee fair and equitable access for all countries of the world based on needs and not on purchasing power.

Currently, COVAX has 141 participants according to the UN-backed Gavi alliance, but this is not the only way for countries to access vaccines as they can also enter into bilateral agreements with manufacturers.