COVID-19: WHO Predicts That The Pandemic Will Last Until 2022.
Key Sentence:The World Health Organization (WHO), the Covid pandemic will 'last a year longer than necessary' because developing countries do not receive the vaccines they need. Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO chief, said this meant the Covid crisis 'could easily continue into 2022'.He promised a t
The Canadian government has confirmed that it is no longer using the Covax vaccine.
Key Sentence:
- The World Health Organization (WHO), the Covid pandemic will "last a year longer than necessary" because developing countries do not receive the vaccines they need.
- Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO chief, said this meant the Covid crisis "could easily continue into 2022".
He promised a total of 100 million.
Most of the Covid vaccines have generally been used in high-income or higher-income countries. Africa accounts for only 2.6% of the dose administered worldwide. Charities, including Oxfam and UNAids, have also criticized Canada and the UK for buying vaccines for their people through Covax, the UN-backed global program for fair distribution.
Official figures show the UK received 539,370 cans of Pfizer earlier this year, while Canada received just under one million cans of AstraZeneca. Dr. Aylward urged rich countries to relinquish their place in the vaccine queue so pharmaceutical companies could prioritize the lowest-income countries. He said rich countries should "keep" where they had pledged at summits like the G7 summit in St. Ives this summer.
"I can tell you we're not on our way," he said. "We need to speed things up, or guess what? This pandemic is going to be a year longer than it should be." The People's Vaccine - an association of charities - has released new data showing that only one in seven doses promised by drug companies and wealthy countries make it to developing countries.
Oxfam Global Health Adviser Rohit Malpani acknowledged that Canada and the UK had the technical right to receive the vaccine in this way after paying under the Covax Mechanism, but said it was still "morally unjustified" as it had indicated that both had received millions of doses through their bilaterals.
"You shouldn't take that dose from Covax," he said. "This is no better than a double-dip and means that poor countries already in the queue will be waiting longer."
The UK government has stated that it is one of the countries Covax launched last year with a donation of £548 million. The Canadian government has confirmed that it is no longer using the Covax vaccine.
The country's minister for international development, Karina Gould, said: "As soon as it became clear that the supplies we were getting through our bilateral transactions would be sufficient for the Canadian people, we turned the cans that Covax bought into Covax, they could be redistributed in developing countries."
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Mary Evans