On Monday, Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the world is nearing a “catastrophic moral failure” if countries don’t begin distributing COVID-19 vaccines equitably.
Tedros said in a statement:
“This could delay COVAX deliveries and create exactly the scenario COVAX was designed to avoid, with hoarding, a chaotic market, an uncoordinated response, and continued social and economic disruption,”
The Director-General has also repeatedly warned against bilateral deals between vaccine producers and rich countries and the hoarding of COVID-19 vaccines.
Tedros also noted that underdeveloped have only managed to administer a small number of vaccines compared to the over 39 million doses administered by richer countries.
To help prevent the unfair distribution of vaccines, the World Health Organization has partnered with multiple vaccine producers to ensure that over 2 billion vaccine doses can be administered to individuals in low-income countries.
The United States is currently leading global COVID-19 cases with over 24.5 million infections and 408,237 fatalities, although India trails behind with 10.5 million cases and 152,593 deaths. As for the third-highest caseload and death toll, Brazil follows with 8.5 million cases and 210,299 deaths.
The novel coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, Hubei, China, on Dec. 31, 2019, and has infected more than 95.9 million individuals worldwide, resulting in over 2 million fatalities across 219 countries and territories.
The Panthera Post 