WHO calls on member states to sign up to world program
The World Health Organization (WHO) wrote to every country on Tuesday urging them to quickly join its global shared vaccine program – and spelled out who would get its eventual coronavirus jabs first.
The WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that without vaccinating the planet’s highest-risk populations simultaneously, it would be impossible to rebuild the global economy.
And he said the most exposed 20 percent of each country’s population – including front-line health workers, adults over 65 and those with preexisting conditions – would be targeted in the first wave of vaccinations, once the WHO-led COVAX shared facility can roll out a proven safe and effective vaccine.
“The fastest way to end this pandemic and to reopen economies is to start by protecting the highest risk populations everywhere, rather than the entire populations of just some countries,” Tedros told a virtual press conference.
The novel coronavirus has killed nearly 775,000 people and infected almost 22 million so far, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.
Researchers and pharmaceutical giants are racing to produce a vaccine, with nine of the 29 currently being tested on humans forming part of the COVAX Global Vaccines Facility.
“If there’s a winner in vaccines, we’ll have one, there’s absolutely no question,” said WHO advisor Bruce Aylward.
Some 92 countries are signed up to COVAX – an effort to pool the costs and rewards of finding, producing and distributing effective vaccines – while a further 80 have expressed interest but are yet to commit fully.
The WHO wants countries to signal a firm interest by August 31.
“The COVAX Global Vaccines Facility is the critical mechanism for joint procurement and pooling risk across multiple vaccines, which is why today I sent a letter to every member state encouraging them to join,” Tedros said.
He specified that the allocation of vaccines would be rolled out in two phases.
In the first, doses would be allocated proportionally to all participating countries simultaneously, in a bid to reduce the overall global risk.
In the second phase, individual countries’ threat and vulnerability level will then come into play.
Tedros said front-line workers in health and social care settings would get first phase priority, “as they are essential to treat and protect the population, and come in close contact with high-mortality risk groups” he explained.
He said initial data showed that adults over 65 and those with particular preexisting conditions were at the highest risk of dying from COVID-19.
Photo taken in Brussels, Belgium on Aug. 6, 2020 shows World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attending an online press conference held in Geneva, Switzerland. The COVID-19 death toll worldwide has surpassed 700,000, reaching 701,754 as of Thursday, according to the latest number from the WHO. (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng)
