One year after the start of vaccination against covid, low-income countries are still unable to massively immunize their population. However, the detection in South Africa in November of the omicron variant, causing a new explosion of cases, has accelerated the delivery of doses to developing countries.
This is explained by Rafael Vilasanjuan, who participates in the executive committee of GAVI, an organization for global vaccination that Bill Gates promoted years ago. Vilasanjuan, Director of Analysis and Development of the Institut de Salut Global de Barcelona (ISGlobal) and who was Secretary General of Doctors without Borders, points out that it is far from the international goal that was set to take 2,000 million doses to developing countries ( to vaccinate 20% of its population).
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Two months ago, just over 200 million doses had reached those countries. After the emergence of omicron, supplies have grown and it is expected to reach 1,200 million by the end of the year, says Vilasanjuan. Even if it is achieved, the figure is equivalent to 13.5% of the 8,946 million doses injected so far on the planet.
video-caption-title ">The protection of the third dose against omicron is reduced at ten weeks
“It was a threat announced by the scientists that a variant of the virus could reactivate the epidemic, if half the world is not vaccinated, the virus will spread and mutates into new strains. Countries like those of the European Union (EU) have seen that their initial forecast of achieving group immunity was surpassed; it is assumed that otherwise we will be subject to the dictatorship of the epidemic, that if there is no global vaccination, the epidemic will not be controlled locally ”, says the international health expert.
In six weeks, developed countries have received more vaccines than Africans in a year
The US has promised to contribute 880 million euros for global vaccination and the World Bank has opened a line of financing of 10 billion, although Vilasanjuan criticizes that with many conditions.
The new objective is that in the first quarter of 2022 more vaccines are distributed and in June between 50% and 70% of the population of each country will be immunized.
Covax, a platform promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO), GAVI and other agents, to buy affordable vaccines for 91 low-income countries, also manages donations.
In many countries there are major problems in distributing vaccines
Vilasanjuan points out that the injections that have come so far (some from Pfizer, but especially from AstraZeneca manufactured in India, the Chinese Sinovacs or Russian Sputnik) have not allowed mass vaccination in these countries, only of health personnel or vulnerable populations.
But in addition, he says, there are major distribution problems within the states (for example, lack of warehouses) that require support and that make it as difficult as the lack of vaccines for them to be inoculated into the population.
And those problems grow with increasing donations between countries (not through Covax), often of vaccines close to their expiration date, which must be distributed quickly in order to take advantage of them.
NGOs ask for patents to be suspended to increase manufacturing points
The NGO Oxfam Intermón criticized the gap in vaccination on Friday: in the last six weeks, between November 11 and December 21, the EU countries, Great Britain and the US received more vaccines – to speed up immunization and give third doses – than African countries throughout the year, 513 million injections versus 500, according to a People’s Vaccine Alliance estimate.
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Activists warn of the risk of an endless cycle of variants, reinforcements and restrictions, if it is not vaccinated around the world. Oxfam Intermón, like other NGOs, believes that the only solution is to suspend the patent on vaccines, so that more countries can manufacture them.
Spain or the US support this proposal, but there are EU countries or others – which host large pharmaceutical companies – that have been opposed for more than a year.
Only 8.6% of the African population with complete pattern
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John Hopkins University in the United States, which monitors vaccination worldwide, confirms that in most African countries there has hardly been a vaccination, the coverage is not even 5%. There are a few with more: 63% of the population has the full pattern in Morocco, 47% in Tunisia, 44% in Botswana and 26.9% in South Africa. In Egypt it is less than 20% and in Kenya it is 8%.
According to Oxfam Intermón, 8.6% of the African population has the complete guideline. At this rate, the entire world population will not take the first dose until April 2023. But, the G7 countries will have a surplus of 1.4 billion doses between now and March 2022.
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