‘Pharmas must hurry’

SLOW START: ONLY 2.5% OF EUROPEAN UNION INOCULATED SO FAR

New strains of virus causing concern for World Health Organisation.

Europe and pharma groups must work together to speed up Covid-19 vaccinations, the head of the European branch of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said, expressing concern about the effectiveness of vaccines on virus variants.

“We need to join up to speed up vaccinations,” WHO Europe director Hans Kluge said, as Europe bids to overcome a slow start to its vaccination campaign amid tensions between Brussels and vaccine manufacturers.

“Otherwise, competing pharmaceutical companies [must] join efforts to drastically increase production capacity ... that’s what we need,” Kluge said.

In the European Union (EU), just 2.5% of the population has received a first dose, though announcements by several laboratories of increased vaccine deliveries have raised hopes of an acceleration.

Asked whether the vaccines available since December would be effective against new virus variants, Kluge replied: “That’s the big question. I’m concerned.

“We have to be prepared” for new problematic mutations of the virus, he warned, calling on countries to expand their genomic sequencing capacity.

“It’s a cruel reminder that the virus still has the upper hand on the human being.”

Of the 53 countries in the WHO’s European region – which includes several countries in central Asia – 37 have reported cases of the British and 17 of the South African variant.

While the fight against the pandemic now appears more challenging than in December when the first vaccines became available, Kluge remained optimistic.

“I’ll be honest, I think that the tunnel is a little bit longer than what I thought at the end of December, but it’s going to be manageable, more preventable this year.”

“The solution or the strategy doesn’t exist. We have to get better at what we do and we are getting better,” he said.

He reiterated the WHO’s call for rich countries to show solidarity toward poor nations, urging wealthy ones to share their doses after having inoculated a portion of their own population.

“Maybe if EU countries vaccinate 20% of their population ... maybe that’s the moment that they can already start to share some vaccines,” he suggested.

The milestone of 100 million doses administered was passed on Tuesday, with 65% of jabs given in high-income countries, according to World Bank criteria.

In a bid to combat “vaccine nationalism”, the WHO has set up Covax, a global inoculation-sharing initiative.

“We know that in the EU, Canada, UK, US, they all ordered and made deals for four to nine times more doses than they need.

“So my point here is, don’t wait until you have 70% of the population [vaccinated] to share.” –

Cruel reminder virus still has upper hand