Tedros wants countries that are already advanced in vaccinating their populations to give vaccines to Covax, an international program that makes vaccines available to poorer countries. The WHO boss understands that some countries want to vaccinate children and adolescents, but is urgently calling for this to be reconsidered.
Tedros pointed out that the second year of the pandemic threatens to be much more deadly than the first, especially the situation in India is very worrying. There, according to official figures, more than 4,000 people per day have died from COVID-19 in recent days, the real number is probably much higher.
The situation is also critical in countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Egypt, says Tedros. He says currently only 0.3 percent of vaccine production goes to lower-income countries. As a result, in many places there are too few doses to vaccinate healthcare workers and hospitals are inundated with people in need of urgent care.
Tedros warns against a moral failure of vaccine nationalism, because he believes that is what is happening now. Canada and the US have already approved the vaccination of children over the age of 12, and in several countries young people over the age of 16 can also receive a vaccine.
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