The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of failure unless the wealthy countries intensify efforts in vaccine sharing.
The international health agency said that rich countries need to join the United States in making vaccines available and give more Covid-19 doses to cover a 200 million dose gap caused by supply disruptions from Indian.
This disclosure was made by a WHO Senior Adviser, Bruce Aylward, who urged on Friday, that wealthy countries donate their surplus doses to poorer countries instead of giving them to less vulnerable groups, such as children.
What the WHO Senior Adviser is saying
Aylward said that only a small portion of those doses will be available in the short-term in June, July, and August when they can make a difference in slowing the pace of infections in the global pandemic.
“We are going to need twice that much and it’s got to be brought forward,” he said, referring to the size of wealthy country donations so far, as G7 health ministers met in Oxford.
“We don’t have enough confirmed doses from enough countries early enough to get the world on track to get out of this… We are setting up for failure if we don’t get early doses.”
He was full of praise for the United States’ plan to quickly share 25 million doses and encouraged other wealthy countries to follow suit.
Aylward estimated that Indian vaccine export disruptions and delays in getting other vaccines online meant that the COVAX sharing scheme had a gap of around 200 million doses.
What you should know
The United States Government had on Thursday laid out a plan to share 25 million surplus Covid-19 vaccines to the world with the first shots expected to be shipped immediately, saying it would ease other countries’ access to U.S-made supplies for vaccine production.
President Joe Biden said the United States would give the vaccines without expectation of political favours in return.
In India, the Serum Institute has diverted AstraZeneca supplies to the domestic market amid a devastating second wave and is expected to lift those restrictions in the fourth quarter when other products earmarked for COVAX are also due online.
