Merdeka.com – Top WHO officials estimate that at least 80 percent of Covid-19 vaccination coverage is needed to significantly lower the chance that imported coronavirus cases could result in new cases or spawn a wider outbreak.
The WHO’s Head of Emergency, Dr Michael Ryan, said in the end, “high levels of vaccination coverage are the way out of this pandemic”.
Many of the world’s wealthiest countries have switched to vaccinating adolescents and children, who have a lower risk of developing severe COVID-19 illness than the elderly or people with a history of the disease – even as those same countries face pressure to share vaccines with other countries. poor countries that lack vaccines.
Ryan admits the data is not completely clear regarding the percentage of vaccination coverage needed to fully impact transmission.
“But of course 80 percent coverage is in a position where you can significantly influence the risk of imported cases potentially generating secondary cases or causing clusters or outbreaks,” he explained, quoted by the South China Morning Post, Tuesday (8/6).
“So it is necessary to have a fairly high vaccination rate, especially in the contest of more infectious virus variants, in order to be on the safe side,” he continued.
WHO’s Covid-19 technical chief, Maria Van Kerkhove, stressed that the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India, is spreading in more than 60 countries, and is more contagious than the alpha or English variant.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on G7 leaders to help the United Nations vaccination program to improve vaccine access for developing countries.
With the G7 leaders meeting planned in the UK this week, Tedros said they could help achieve the target of at least 10 per cent of the population in each country being vaccinated by the end of September and 30 per cent by the end of the year.
“To achieve this target, we need an additional 250 million doses in September, and we need hundreds of millions of doses only in June and July,” he explained.
“These seven countries have the power to achieve this target. I call on the G7 not only to commit to distributing the vaccine, but also to commit to distributing the vaccine in June and July.” [pan]
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