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”.