According to the WHO epidemiological report, Covid-19 deaths, last week, fell to their lowest level in almost a year at almost 50,000 fatalities.
Despite the weekly consecutive decline in Covid-19 deaths reported across the world except in Europe, vaccine inequities in developing countries is still a matter of great concern to the health organization.
The WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus disclosed recently that 56 countries, most of which belong in the African region, did not reach the 10% population vaccination benchmark required by the WHO by September ending.
What this means
Reported deaths have been highest in countries with the least access to the shots and hence, have the lowest rates of vaccination.
Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus reacting to the high number of deaths in the low vaccination status countries said, “It’s still an unacceptably high level, almost 50,000 deaths a week. And the real number is certainly higher.”
He noted that majority of the 56 nations with vaccination rates below 10% are in Africa and half of the 52 African countries with covid vaccines have only successfully immunized 2% or less of the populations.
Furthermore, he stated that most developed countries have used 75% of all Covid shots that were developed during the pandemic, while just less than 5% of Africa’s population has been fully vaccinated.
Recall that, WHO officials recently denounced the global rollout of Covid boosters by some developed countries, to allow for allocation of surplus vaccines to low-income countries that have not been able to meet up the required vaccination benchmark.
The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres who joined the WHO Covid briefing last week, condemned the global vaccine inequities describing it as “immoral” and “stupid,” adding that low vaccination rates in the global south could fuel the mutation of vaccine-resistant Covid variants.