GENEVA • The Covid-19 pandemic is being perpetuated by a "scandalous inequity" in vaccine distribution, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday as he set new targets for protecting people in the poorest countries.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that no country should assume that it is "out of the woods", no matter its vaccination rate, as long as the Sars-CoV-2 virus and its variants spread elsewhere.
He also noted that at least 115,000 health and care workers have died from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
"For almost 18 months, health and care workers all over the world have stood in the breach between life and death," Dr Tedros told the opening of the WHO's main annual assembly of health ministers from its 194 member states, hailing the sacrifices made by health workers around the world to battle the pandemic.
"They have saved countless lives and fought for others who, despite their best efforts, slipped away," he said.
"Many have themselves become infected, and while reporting is scant, we estimate that at least 115,000 health and care workers have paid the ultimate price in the service of others."
He said many health workers have since the start of the crisis felt "frustrated, helpless and unprotected, with a lack of access to personal protective equipment and vaccines".
And they are not alone. He described the overall inequity in access to vaccines as "scandalous", warning it was "perpetuating the pandemic".
More than 75 per cent of all Covid-19 vaccines have gone to just 10 countries.
"There is no diplomatic way to say it: A small group of countries that make and buy the majority of the world's vaccines control the fate of the rest of the world," he said.
The Covax facility, run by the WHO and the Gavi vaccine alliance, has delivered 72 million vaccine doses to 125 countries and economies since February - barely sufficient for 1 per cent of their populations, Dr Tedros said.
"Today, I'm calling on member states to support a massive push to vaccinate at least 10 per cent of the population of every country by September," he said, calling for the coverage to be expanded to 30 per cent by the end of the year.
This meant vaccinating 250 million more people in just four months, he said.
"This is crucial to stop disease and death, keep our healthcare workers safe, reopen our societies and economies," Dr Tedros said.
He also called on vaccine manufacturers to give Covax the first right of refusal on new volumes of vaccines, or to commit 50 per cent of their volumes to Covax this year.
"The world remains in a very dangerous situation," Dr Tedros said.
"As of today, more cases have been reported so far this year than in the whole of 2020. On current trends, the number of deaths will overtake last year's total within the next three weeks. This is very tragic," he said.
More than a year into the pandemic, cases worldwide have risen 40-fold to more than 160 million, while the number of deaths has increased 11 times to more than three million, according to WHO statistics.
French President Emmanuel Macron called for the WHO to be empowered to visit countries rapidly in case of outbreaks with potential to spark a pandemic, and to access data.
Mr Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in separate pre-recorded remarks to the assembly, called for the United Nations agency's funding to be improved and backed the idea of a new international treaty to prevent pandemics.
Coronavirus vaccine producers had promised billions of doses for poorer countries at a G-20 health summit last Friday, where leaders vowed to expand access to jabs as the only way to end the pandemic.
The bosses of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson announced they would supply around 3.5 billion vaccine doses at cost or discount to low- and middle-income countries this year and next.
The European Union pledged to donate 100 million doses and invest in regional manufacturing hubs in Africa to reduce the continent's reliance on imports.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, XINHUA
