WHO stresses need for equity on vaccines
Scramble for doses puts many poor countries at risk of missing out, agency chief warns
The head of the World Health Organization, or WHO, has called on richer countries not to undermine the United Nations-led COVAX program, which aims to ensure COVID-19 vaccines reach people in poorer countries.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said some high-income countries are entering into contracts with vaccine manufacturers that undermine the deals COVAX has in place. Such deals reduce the number of doses that can be bought under the program.
On Friday, leaders from several G7 countries and the European Union committed $4.3 billion in new funding to finance the equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for COVID-19.
Tedros thanked them for the contributions but warned that “money is not the only challenge we face”.
“If there are no vaccines to buy, money is irrelevant,” the WHO chief said. “Even if we have the funds, we can only deliver vaccines to poorer countries if high-income countries cooperate in respecting the deals COVAX has done, and the new deals it is doing.”
Tedros urged wealthy nations to check whether their own deals with pharmaceutical companies were undermining COVAX, which poorer countries were relying on as they await their first doses.
He pointed out that it is in the interest of all countries “to ensure that health workers, older people and other at-risk groups are first in line for vaccines globally”.
“To achieve this, we need more funding, we need countries to share doses immediately, we need manufacturers to prioritize contracts with COVAX, and we also need a significant increase in the production of vaccines,” Tedros said.
‘There will be enough’
He also commented on a pledge by French President Emmanuel Macron to share 5 percent of the country’s doses with COVAX, and added that “more vaccines are being developed, approved and produced. There will be enough for everyone”.
The first wave of COVAX vaccines is to be shipped out between late February and the end of June.
Some 145 participating economies are set to receive 337.2 million doses — enough to vaccinate a little over 3 percent of their combined populations.
COVAX has said it hopes to raise the figure to up to 27 percent in lower-income countries by the end of December.
“But for now and for the rest of this year, vaccines will be a limited resource,” Tedros said. “We must use them as strategically as we can.”
Beyond the distribution of the vaccines, the agency and its partners have also agreed to launch a program to help people in relation to claims of serious side effects arising from the vaccines. It will cover 92 poorer countries.
The program, No-Fault Compensation, will offer eligible individuals “a fast, fair, robust and transparent process to receive compensation for rare but serious adverse events associated with COVAX-distributed vaccines until June 30 2022”, the WHO said on Monday in a statement.
This agreement could offer further protection and confidence in the lifesaving power of vaccines, Tedros said.
According to the WHO’s statistics, the COVID-19 pandemic has infected more than 110 million people and claimed nearly 2.5 million lives so far. That’s aside from the loss of livelihoods and school closures with the global economy having been thrown into turmoil.
“It has exposed and exploited the fault lines, inequalities, injustices and contradictions of our world, within and between countries,” Tedros said at another meeting on Monday.
He said that vaccine equity is “our highest priority, and we will not stop until we get it”.
January has proved to be a big month revenue-wise for China’s major listed companies specializing in courier, delivery or logistics services.
This was a sharp contrast to their performance in the same month of 2020 when the COVID-19 outbreak savaged their sales.
Analysts said demand for e-commerce services surged early this year as more people stocked up and e-shopped in the run-up to Spring Festival.
To cut down on risks from the contagion, consumers in urban areas stayed in the cities where they work and live during the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday from Feb 10 to 16.
Four A-share listed courier companies reported significant year-onyear rise in their January sales revenue.
According to the filing to the bourses late on Friday, SF Holding Co Ltd reported a surge of 40.91 percent in revenue to 16.39 billion yuan ($2.54 billion) in January, and its single-month courier business volume swelled 59.54 percent year-onyear to reach 903 million units.
SF credited its impressive earnings to the development of new business and the disparity effect of the Lunar New Year, which started in mid-February this year whereas it started in late January last year.
SF’s business volume grew 4 percent in January from a month earlier, approaching the peak of last November, according to a report by Ming Xing, an analyst with Essence Securities.
The other three listed delivery/ courier companies’ performance was also robust.
Yunda Express reported its package delivery service revenue surged 70.68 percent year-on-year to 3.09 billion yuan in January, and its business volume more than doubled to 1.39 billion units.
Yunda Express currently holds the greatest market share of 16.3 percent among Chinese couriers, according to Huachuang Securities’ data.
YTO Express saw its business volume more than double to 1.27 billion units, and its revenue from delivery services increased 74.87 percent to 3.01 billion yuan.
Likewise, STO Express’ service and business revenue in January reached 2.12 billion yuan, up 59.64 percent year-on-year, and its volume of business soared 110.25 percent year-on-year to 843 million units.
The booming business volume is also attributable to this year’s particular condition that a large number of Chinese chose to stay put in their cities during the Spring Festival holiday, said the Essence Securities report.
“The new phenomenon has created the unprecedented demand for delivery services. As a result, the conventional Spring Festival travel rush was replaced with a package flux,” said Wang Jingtian, an analyst with China Galaxy Securities.
Official data showed passenger flows were only 25 percent of the pre-epidemic level in the first 18 days of the Spring Festival travel peak period this year.
However, total courier package deliveries handled nationwide on Lunar New Year’s Eve and Lunar New Year’s Day exceeded 130 million, soaring 223 percent year-onyear, Wang said.
As measures to contain COVID19 are still on, shopping online has become the choice of many Chinese consumers, and demand became stronger due to requirements for buying special goods of the Lunar New Year, said analysts.
As many as 8.49 billion packages were delivered across the nation in January, up 124.7 percent year-onyear, according to data from the State Post Bureau, and courier delivery firms benefited mostly from the e-commerce boom.
On Feb 16, JD Logistics, the logistics unit of Chinese e-commerce giant JD, filed for IPO in Hong Kong. JD Logistics said it will use the proceeds to upgrade and expand its logistics network, develop supply chain solutions and logistics service-related technologies.
Competition will intensify among e-commerce-related logistics businesses this year, and this process will lead to a shake-up, rationalizing the number of players in the market, said Huangfu Xiaohan, an analyst with Guotai Junan Securities, in an interview with Jiemian.
The new phenomenon has created the unprecedented demand for delivery services. As a result, the conventional Spring Festival travel rush was replaced with a package flux.”
Wang Jingtian, an analyst with China Galaxy Securities