The World Health Organization (WHO) criticised “shocking inequalities” in access to covid-19 vaccines by African countries compared to countries in other regions of the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) lamented the “shocking inequalities in access to vaccines” against Covid-19 at the opening of a virtual annual meeting of health ministers from the African continent.
“Worldwide, 140 countries have vaccinated at least 10 per cent of their population, but on our continent, only four countries have managed to achieve this goal, due to shocking inequalities in access to vaccines,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
According to Ghebreyesus, this crisis in access to vaccines shows the fundamental weakness at the heart of fighting the pandemic, which is “the lack of solidarity and global sharing of data, information, biological samples, resources, technology and tools.”
According to French news agency AFP, the WHO director-general called on African countries to support an “international treaty or other legal instrument to improve international cooperation” in the response to the pandemic, a document that could be discussed in November during the World Health Assembly.
At the meeting, WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, recalled that the global vaccine procurement platform, Covax, “has delivered only 40 million doses of vaccine to African countries, which is only a small fraction of the amount needed to protect people on the continent from the risk of severe illness and death from covid-19.”
The covid-19 pandemic “represents both an opportunity and a stark reminder of the need to rethink systems that improve equity and to invest more in developing a healthier and fairer world,” Moeti said, adding, “We deeply regret the delays and difficulties in meeting agreements due to unforeseen circumstances during the pandemic, we have learned many lessons.”
