The world is facing a “catastrophic moral failure” over the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines – with affluent countries gaining more access because it produces higher profits, a global health leader accused on Monday.
While countries like the US report the distribution of more than 31 million doses to residents so far, poorer countries have received a meager number of vaccinations – and that is simply ‘not right’, the director general of the World Health Organization said. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Only 25 doses were given in one country with the lowest income – not 25 million, not 25,000, but only 25,” Tedros said.
The WHO chief did not disclose the country’s name, but a spokesman for the agency later said it was Guinea in West Africa.
“I have to be blunt: the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure,” Tedros said of the world’s current vaccination effort.
‘It is right that all governments want to prioritize vaccinating their own health workers and the elderly first. But it is not right for younger, healthier adults in rich countries to be vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries. There will be enough vaccine for everyone, ” he said during the opening of the agency’s annual executive council meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.
“We are now facing the real danger that even if vaccines are given hope to some people, it will still be a brick in the wall of inequality between the world of the world’s possession and possession,” Tedros said.
He said a big problem is that vaccine manufacturers first went through the government’s approval process in rich countries, because that’s where the money should be earned.
“This first approach is not only endangering the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, it is also self-defeating,” the BBC chief told the BBC.
“Ultimately, these actions will only prolong the pandemic, prolong our pain, the constraints needed to curb it, and human and economic suffering.”
With Post threads