WHO calls for greater vaccine explosion as US approaches ‘breaking point’

GENEVA, Switzerland – The World Health Organization has called on vaccine manufacturers to dramatically increase production as US President Joe Biden warns that the economic outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic is pushing the United States to a breaking point.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that although the number of Covid-19 vaccines (115 million) now exceeded the number of infections worldwide (104 million), more than three-quarters of the stings were distributed in just ten affluent people. . countries.

“Nearly 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, still need to administer a single dose,” Tedros complained.

“Unless we suppress the virus everywhere, we could end up in the first place again,” the WHO chief said, calling on vaccine manufacturers to apply a “huge return in production”.

At the same time, US President Joe Biden has said he needs to act ‘quickly’ to push a major new economic relief package through Congress, as many Americans are close to ‘breaking point’.

The US, the world’s largest economy, is the country hardest hit by the pandemic so far.

Of the nearly 2.3 million people who have died from Covid-19 worldwide since the outbreak in China in December 2019, the US has recorded more than 450,000 deaths.

“I see tremendous pain in this country, a lot of people who are not working, a lot of people are going hungry,” Biden said in a White House speech.

“We can reduce suffering in this country,” Biden said. “I really believe real help is on the way,” when he asked for Republican support for his $ 1.9 billion pandemic relief package.

Macron, Merkel defends EU

Europe is still the region worst affected, with more than 760,000 deaths. And here, the slow explosion of the vaccine unleashed public anger and plunged the bloc’s leadership into a crisis.

EU member states needed to work more closely with drug companies to increase the rate of vaccination, the WHO regional chief said.

“We need to step in to speed up vaccinations,” WHO director Hans Kluge told AFP in an interview.

“Otherwise, competing pharmaceutical companies will have to make an effort to drastically increase production capacity … that’s what we need.”

Despite the difficult start to the implementation of the vaccine in the bloc of 27 countries, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron are defending the Brussels strategy.

“I fully support the European approach,” Macron told an online news conference after talks with Merkel. “What would people say if countries like France and Germany competed for vaccines?”

“It will be a mess and counterproductive,” he said.

Merkel, in turn, said that although the slow deployment showed that the bloc needed to increase the production capacity of pharmaceutical products, ‘the basic decision to organize together as the European Union was and is right’.

Nevertheless, in the wake of Europe’s growing urgency, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell said he hoped Russia’s Sputnik V jab would soon be approved for use in Europe.

So far, only vaccines made by AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech are allowed in the EU.

But Spain said on Friday it would restrict the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people under 55, the youngest European country to impose an age restriction on the Anglo-Swedish jab.

Last week, the German vaccine authority advised against using the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over 65, judging that there is “insufficient data” on its effectiveness in this age group.

The decision came hours after EU drug regulator gave the vaccine the green light for use in adults of all ages, saying it believed it would be safe for older people as well.

Still out of control

The drug firm Johnson & Johnson has asked U.S. regulators to approve the vaccine, which requires only one dose and can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures – unlike some of the other injection sites currently in use.

The firm said it is on track to deliver 100 million doses to the US if approved.

But trials have shown that the J&J shot is not as effective against the highly transmissible variant first identified in South Africa, which is spreading rapidly around the world.

The South African variant and another first unveiled in England are causing increasing concern, with experts in Germany warning that they have given the pandemic a further boost.

“The situation is far from under control,” said Lothar Wieler of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), a day after the government hinted that it was considering easing restrictions.

Many governments are concerned about when and how to lift closures and other rules.

Israel, which has vaccinated more than a third of its population, said it had agreed to ease Sunday’s exclusion – despite registering more deaths in January than in any other month.

‘It’s a nightmare’

The cultural outbreak of the pandemic is still felt strongly in institutions around the world, while museums in Paris have been cut out of their usual crowds for months, pleading to be allowed to reopen.

“It’s a nightmare,” said Christophe Leribault of the Petit Palais, where a recent Danish art exhibition managed to stay open for just a few weeks.

‘I managed to negotiate extensions. But after a year we had to return the paintings. ‘

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