Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Although a number of countries have chosen to make peace with the corona virus (Covid-19), the World Health Organization (WHO) sees the pandemic will not end.
This is at least until mid-2022. This projection is fueled by low vaccination rates worldwide.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO was disappointed by the failure of rich countries to help vaccinate low- and middle-income countries. He called this what prevented the pandemic from ending.
“(The pandemic) will end when the world chooses to end it, because the solution is in our hands,” he was quoted as saying Newsweek, Tuesday (27/7/2021).
He announced a global goal of vaccinating at least 10% of every country’s population by September 2021. He hopes to reach 40% by the end of the year and then 70% by the middle of next year.
“This is an important milestone that we must achieve together to end the pandemic,” he stressed again.
He called vaccine injustice a “moral failure” and “epidemiologically and economically self-defeating”. Health experts have shown that low vaccination rates in certain regions of the world allow the virus to spread and increase the chances of new mutations forming.
According to Tedros, achieving the vaccination target of 70% of each country’s population requires 11 billion doses of the vaccine. To fill an immediate gap in vaccine supply, he said rich countries need to start sharing doses rather than stockpiling.
However, it is only a short term solution. Tedros said the world needed to “dramatically” increase the number of vaccines being produced to help low-income countries.
“There are many diseases for which we lack vaccines, good tests and effective treatments. Not so for Covid-19. We have all the tools we need,” he said.
“That means ending the pandemic is not essentially a test of scientific discovery, financial strength, or industrial prowess; it’s a test of character.”
So far more than 2 billion people have been vaccinated, accounting for about a quarter of the global population. However this number is well below the 70% required to potentially achieve herd immunity (herd immunity) because most of these vaccinations are only in a few countries.
From data WorldometersAs of Tuesday, 195 million people worldwide have been infected with Covid-19 with 4.1 million deaths. However, there are 177 million cases recovered.
There are a total of 13.9 million active cases. As many as 85,000 people are in serious and even critical situations.
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