First modification: 05/07/2022 – 03:37
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Experts warn that the Covid-19 pandemic exposed a serious lack of infrastructure in low-income countries, required for the distribution of these injections, so they believe that another similar event would have the same problems that did not allow a better delivery of these drugs.
A study by Imperial College London shows that vaccines against Covid-19 prevented around 20 million deaths globally.
Oliver Watson, lead author of the study, explained that “we found that the majority of deaths were averted in high- and upper-middle-income countries, and that is largely due to their access to more effective mRNA vaccines such as the Pfizer and Moderna, but also the fact that they were able to achieve very high levels of vaccine coverage, before relaxing non-pharmaceutical interventions and allowing transmission to increase.”
Another figure highlighted by the study is that another almost 600,000 deaths could have been avoided if the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 40% of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 had been met. The text explains that the Most deaths occurred in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, adding that if low-income countries had been able to reach the target, one in five deaths would have been prevented.
“It wasn’t just about more equitable sharing of vaccines around the world and not keeping them in richer countries, although that was part of the problem, particularly in the early stages. It also happened that the countries that eventually received the vaccines were not well equipped to provide them to the people and, in fact, the people were not able to access the good kind of information to encourage them to come and seek those vaccines. We are used to assuming that anti-vaccine propaganda is a peculiarity of the West and no, it is something global, “said Professor Adam Finn, pediatrician and head of the Children’s Vaccine Center in Bristol.
The team that carried out the investigation highlights the good results of the Covax vaccine distribution program, which prevented 7.5 million deaths. However, experts warn that the Covid-19 pandemic exposed a serious lack of infrastructure in low-income countries, required for the distribution of these injections, so they believe that another similar event would have the same problems that did not allow a better delivery of these drugs.
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