WHO ENVOY SAYS WORLD IS ‘NOT EVEN HALFWAY’ TO WINNING COVID-19 RACE
▶ Carl Bildt gives warning that no country can consider itself safe if other nations have low vaccination rates
A World Health Organisation special envoy has said there is still “a long way to go” in the fight to keep the coronavirus under control, despite the pace of some vaccination campaigns.
Carl Bildt, co-chairman of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former Swedish prime minister, told The National he supported the goal to have 70 per cent of the global population inoculated against Covid-19 by this time next year, but said the road ahead would be difficult.
The global community is in a race against time to vaccinate populations before the emergence of any new coronavirus variants, which could nullify the protection offered by vaccines.
Mr Bildt is special envoy to the Access to Covid Tools Accelerator Act, a global collaboration of leading public health agencies working with governments, civil society and industry to speed up the development and equitable delivery of coronavirus tests, treatments and vaccinations.
“We are now sort of roughly at 30 per cent, which means that we are not even halfway to what we would consider the necessary level in order to get the pandemic really under control,” Mr Bildt said.
He acknowledged that the emergence of the Delta variant and any other potential mutations in the future might mean the vaccination target would have to be increased.
“At the moment, 70 per cent is what we are aiming at,” he said.
According to the latest data, the UAE is a world leader on the vaccine front, with 83 per cent of its citizens fully vaccinated.
The UK, meanwhile, has given 65.9 per cent of its population two doses.
While many world leaders are hailing the success of their own programmes, Mr Bildt spoke of the dangers of nations omitting themselves from the bigger picture.
He said that no country could claim to have watertight protection against Covid-19 if there were huge numbers of unvaccinated populations in other nations.
Referring to low vaccination rates in medium and lower-income countries, he said: “Until we get them covered as well, we will still be at risk, even in the UAE or London.
“We have faced somewhat of an uphill struggle getting rid of all the trade restrictions, but we are doing better on that at the moment, expanding vaccine production, also a fairly impressive effort, but the distribution of vaccines is, of course, highly unequal between the different parts of the world, and that is creating increasing difficulties.”
Despite his warning, he did not want to be drawn into criticism of countries that have been accused of vaccine nationalism and hoarding injections instead of donating them to poorer nations.
He said it was entirely understandable for India to temporarily block exports of vaccines during the height of its second wave earlier this year.
The move dealt a major blow to dozens of countries that had signed contracts with one of the world’s biggest vaccine producers.
Mr Bildt said while the argument could be made for booster doses for older and vulnerable people in countries that have enough vaccines, any leftover doses thereafter would be “far better spent in other countries”.
“As much of the excess as possible should be going to the countries in general that have lower vaccine rates,” he said.
ACT Accelerator has prompted the US and the EU to take the lead in the fight to protect people against the virus by establishing a transatlantic task force to work towards vaccination objectives.
It comprises the US and the 27 nations of the European trading bloc.
Despite the administration of US President Joe Biden being eager to be at the helm of such efforts, the authorities in America are struggling to convince many people to accept a vaccine.
According to the latest figures, 55 per cent of American citizens have received two doses. Mr Biden last month warned the unvaccinated that his “patience is wearing thin”.
The introduction of a vaccine mandate for federal workers, which has resulted in many people losing their jobs, has split opinion across the country.
Mr Bildt declined to offer his opinion on whether vaccine mandates were justifiable.
“That’s up to the different countries,” he said.
He also said any reluctance to take vaccines was unlikely to change if the WHO recommended vaccine passports.
“I don’t think any recommendation from the WHO would help the problems that are being had, for example, in America at the moment,” he said.
“There’s an abundance of studies available that can sort of alleviate the suspicion that is there.”
The antidote for scepticism, he said, was simply “information, information, information”.
Some women have voiced concerns over taking a
The distribution of vaccines is highly unequal between different parts ... and that is creating difficulties CARL BILDT
WHO envoy
Covid-19 vaccine after reports of disruption to menstruation among those who had received some inoculations.
Last month, a leading immunologist at Imperial College London said any changes to women’s periods should be investigated to prevent misinformation.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr Victoria Male called for studies after more than 30,000 women reported disruptions to their menstrual cycles.
Mr Bildt said that numerous studies had been carried out and had found only “extremely limited” cases of side effects.
He said never in the history of the world had so many people been vaccinated in such a short space of time.
“We have more than 5 billion people vaccinated and that’s been going on now for more than a year,” he said.
“So, there’s a huge body of evidence available and had there been anything really serious, it should have been detected.”