The head of the WHO took the opportunity to reiterate his call for a more equitable distribution of anticovid vaccines.
The international community must create a global fund to finance the future response to pandemics such as the current one, stressed today the body created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank (WB) to measure global preparedness for these health crises. .
The Oversight Board on Global Preparedness, chaired by the Senegalese Elhadj As Sy, concluded today a new meeting to analyze the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic after which it launched five recommendations, including the aforementioned creation of a financial fund global for health issues.
Other suggestions include the adoption of an international treaty for pandemic preparedness (previously proposed by WHO and supported by numerous states) and the organization of a leaders’ summit at which such an international consensus may be negotiated and approved.
“The pandemic has shown that the world is divided on many issues, showing polarization and nationalism,” Sy stressed when presenting the results of the meeting, at a press conference with the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The head of the WHO took the opportunity to reiterate his call for a more equitable distribution of anticovid vaccines, in order to achieve the goal of vaccinating at least 40% of the population of each country before the end of the year.
“We continue to hear excuses to explain why low-income countries have only received 0.4% of the world’s vaccines. One of them is that they do not have the capacity to administer them, something that is not true,” said Tedros.
“We continue to ask manufacturers to prioritize their contracts with COVAX,” he added, referring to the vaccine distribution program mainly for developing countries launched last year by the WHO.
Tedros also lamented that many countries with high vaccination rates are ignoring the WHO’s request for a moratorium on the administration of third booster doses, requested in order to make more vaccines available for shipment to low- and middle-income economies. (I)
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