COVID-19 VACCINE : The promise of equitable access is at serious risk

WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus opening remarks at the opening session of the 148th Executive Board in Geneva, Switzerland
40 years ago, a
new virus emerged and sparked a pandemic. Life-saving medicines were developed,
but more than a decade passed before the world’s poor got access to them.
12 years ago, a new virus emerged and sparked a pandemic. Life
saving vaccines were developed, but by the time the world’s poor got access,
the pandemic was over.
One year ago, a new virus emerged and sparked a pandemic.
Life-saving vaccines have been developed. What happens next is up to us.
Vaccines are
the shot in the arm we all need - literally and figuratively.
But we now face
the real danger that even as vaccines bring hope to some, they become another
brick in the wall of inequality between the world’s haves and have-nots.
It’s right that
all governments want to prioritize vaccinating their own health workers and
older people first.
But it’s not right that younger, healthier adults in rich countries
are vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries.
As the first vaccines begin to be
deployed, the promise of equitable access is at serious risk.
More
than 39 million doses of vaccine have now been administered in at least 49
higher-income countries. Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income
country. Not 25 million; not 25 thousand; just 25.
The
world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure. And the price of this
failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world's poorest
countries.
Source : World Health Organization
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