While in North America 55 percent of the population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and in Europe 58 percent of all people have already received their doses, in Africa this figure is barely 7.2 percent.
It is the continent that has had the least access to the injections developed by large laboratories to reduce mortality and serious illness related to the new coronavirus.
Experts have stated that this inequity will not only translate into illness and death, but on the possibility that the virus that causes Covid-19 continues to mutate, which endangers all of humanity.
Vaccine inequity *
United States President Joe Biden reports being proud to have donated nearly 140 million vaccines in 90 countries.
However, what matters most it is not the absolute number of vaccines that have been distributed or how countries are positioned on the scale of the World Vaccination League. It is the number of vaccines in relation to the needs that have been made available and the number of vaccinations in the most vaccinated country in relation to the number of vaccinations in the least vaccinated country.
Covid’s war will be won or lost on the battlefield of equity. And fairness is a relative issue, not an absolute one.
It may interest you | Ómicron: what we don’t know about the new SARS-CoV-2 variant
It is of little consolation, for example, that Canada has a total vaccination rate per 100 people of 155.67 while Tanzania has a rate of 1.63. No one will be safe from Covid as long as inequality gaps exist in vaccines of this magnitude. Where vaccination rates are low, the virus can continue to spread and proliferate. This increases the risk of more deadly and contagious variants.
Regional inequality is not new. In September 2021, the median vaccination in Europe was 78.6 vaccinations per 100 people.
It may interest you | United States: New York declares a state of emergency before the Omicron variant
But in Africa there are the lowest levels, for example, in Tanzania it was 0.57 total vaccines per 100 people and Equatorial Guinea had 26.34 total vaccines per 100 people.
The effectiveness of vaccination as a public health strategy will remain compromised as long as large numbers in the world community remain unvaccinated.
While there is still much to learn about Omicron’s behavior and impact, the global community must demonstrate and commit to real support for countries doing the right thing by sharing information quickly and transparently.
*Reuters.
–
