The director of emergencies World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 —deaths, hospitalizations and lockdowns— could end this year if effective steps are taken to eliminate inequality in access to vaccines.
Dr. Michael Ryan, in a panel organized by the World Forum in Davos on equality in the distribution of vaccines, declared that “we may never end the virus” because these types of pathogens “sometimes end up being part of the ecosystem”.
But “we have a chance to end the public health emergency this year if we do what we have preached,” he added.
The WHO has emphatically criticized the inequality between rich and poor countries in terms of access to vaccines, calling it a moral failure. In poor countries, on average, less than 10% of the population has received just the first dose.
Ryan indicated that if vaccines and other medical equipment are not equitably distributed, the tragedy of the virus, which has already caused more than 5.5 million people worldwide, will continue.
“What we have to do is get to low levels of incidence with maximum levels of vaccination, so that no one has to die,” Ryan said.
“The most important point is this: It is the deaths, it is the hospitalizations, it is the disruption of our social, economic, political systems that is causing this tragedy, not the virus,” he added.
Ryan also delved into the controversy over whether COVID-19 should be treated as something endemic – as some countries like Spain favor, in order to live with the problem – instead of a pandemic, which entails special measures to curb the spread. contagion.
“Endemic malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people. HIV is endemic. Violence is endemic in urban centers. To say that something is endemic does not mean that something is good. To say something is endemic is to say it’s here forever,” Ryan said.
Public health experts have warned that COVID-19 is unlikely to be totally eliminated, predicting that it will likely continue to kill people, albeit in smaller numbers, even if it becomes endemic.
Another panelist, Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, cited the “tremendous urgency” to distribute vaccines more equitably and increase production.
Resources to combat the pandemic, Bucher added, “are being hoarded by a small number of corporations.”
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