The epidemiologist and director of the Global Alliance for Vaccination (GAVI), Seth Berkley, warns that “there are still 16 countries in the world with less than 10% of the population vaccinated” and that, of them, 14 are in “challenging” situations, such as armed conflicts.
Berkley (USA1956) assures that “the situation has improved compared to January, when there were 34 countries with less than 10% of the population vaccinated”, and values that “reducing by more than half the countries with this low vaccination rate has not been easy because it is difficult to operate in countries with such weak health systems”.
The GAVI association, created in 2000 by, among others, the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gatesis a global organization of public-private collaboration with the aim of guarantee and improve access to vaccinationparticularly children in developing countries, against preventable, life-threatening diseases.
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During the start of the pandemic Covidthe entity promoted a campaign to raise $10 billion -an amount that they obtained after a few months- to reach, at least, 20% of the vaccinated population in all the countries.
Berkley, who a few days ago participated in Barcelona in the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the International Cooperation Program of the La Caixa Foundation, says that, at this time, “47% of the population of the 92 poorest countries in the world has received an average of two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, while the global average is 61%“.
Of the 92 countries, GAVI operates in 86 of them and, since its creation, it has financed the vaccination of nearly 800 million children against deadly diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, yellow fever and, more recently, Covid, among others.
This difference, according to the epidemiologist, shows that “the distribution is still not equitablebut steps are being taken so that the distance is less and less because, in addition, soon everyone will need more doses of the Covid vaccine “.
Another challenge GAVI faced was that “many pharmaceutical companies did not prioritize access to vaccines in developing countriesbut the sales of these in developed countries”, denounces the director of the institution, which received the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in 2020.
“When we saw that this mercantilist vision prevailed, we chose to work with manufacturers to change the direction of this dynamic and find a balance between selling patents and promoting equity in the distribution“, Add.
At the same time, most developed countries had access to the different Covid vaccines, with which they were able to immunize their population before poor countries.
“We knew that political leaders would do their best to defend their citizens first, but in a global pandemic we are only safe when the whole world is safe“, warns Berkley, who criticizes that “many countries have prioritized nationalism and have forgotten the rest of the world.”
For now, the director of GAVI recommends “minimize the risks in each country and vaccinate everyone with some fairness to avoid new strains that could cause vaccines to stop being effective.
The low vaccination rates are especially focused on Africawhere “tests are scarceso the scope that covid has had has focused, above all, on autopsies of patients who were potential carriers of the virus,” says the epidemiologist, who graduated in Medicine from Harvard University.
The expert also points out that the disease severity in African countries is lower than in developed countries because, for example, “if the average age in Japan is 80 years old, the African population is on average 18 years old, so the serious symptoms will be minor”.
This, however, “does not mean that we should forget about these countrieswho for the most part have far fewer opportunities to be immunized against Covid,” Berkley concludes.
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