Tedros: Support 10% vaccination push by September

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to support a push to vaccinate at least 250 million more people in low- and middle-income countries in the next four months in his address to the 74th World Health Assembly.

“I am calling on member states to support a massive push to vaccinate at least 10% of the population of every country by September, and a drive to December to achieve our goal of vaccinating at least 30% by the end of the year,” he said.

The WHO chief said the current distribution of coronavirus vaccines is a “scandalous inequity,” with over 75% of all doses administered in just 10 countries.

“There is no diplomatic way to say it: a small group of countries that make and buy the majority of the world’s vaccines control the fate of the rest of the world,” he said, arguing that doses administered to date “would have been enough to cover all health workers and older people, if they had been distributed equitably.”

Data from World in Data show that 65 countries and territories have fully vaccinated more than 10% of their populations. However, 95 other countries and territories have yet to reach that percentage, with 39 of those countries having vaccinated only less than 1% of their populations.

While it’s understable that governments want to protect their own populations, there is currently not enough supply of vaccines. Countries already vaccinating children and other low-risk groups are doing so “at the expense of health workers and high-risk groups in other countries,” Tedros said.

COVAX, the global procurement mechanism for COVID-19 vaccines, has shipped 72 million doses to 125 countries and territories, he said, but that covers just nearly 1% of their combined population.

To reach the September and December vaccination targets, the WHO chief asked countries to share their doses to COVAX and get the doses moving by early June. He also asked vaccine manufacturers to give COVAX the right of first refusal on new vaccine volumes, or commit 50% to COVAX in 2021. Countries that receive vaccines should also use them immediately.

“No dose can lay idle, or worse, be thrown away,” he said.

He also highlighted the need to scale-up manufacturing, for countries and manufacturers to join the WHO COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, and called for the full financing of the ACT-Accelerator, which continues to have a funding gap of $18.5 billion.

“Several manufacturers have said they have capacity to produce vaccines if the originator companies are willing to share licenses, technology, and know-how. I find it difficult to understand why this has not happened yet,” he said.

A number of health ministers highlighted the need to address the vaccine crisis on the first day of the 74th WHA, including support for waiving intellectual property rights and boosting local production of vaccines. Some also called attention to emerging vaccine discrimination.

“Countries must desist from engaging in discriminatory conduct and accept all valid certificates for vaccines approved by [the] World Health Organization for emergency use,” said Kenyan health minister Mutahi Kagwe.

A number of countries are opening their borders for travel. However, some are only accepting travelers vaccinated with certain brands of vaccines.

Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, also called for an end to “vaccine apartheid” during a high-level panel session, and called for “rectification of the qualifications for access for the COVAX Facility.” He said a number of small island states, such as Antigua and Barbuda, have to pay to access vaccines via COVAX, just because their capacity “is wrongly imagined by a relatively high per capita income.”

Antigua and Barbuda is part of the self-financing countries under COVAX, and considered a high-income economy under the World Bank.