Soumya Swaminathan,chief scientist,World Health Organization,
“Our expectation is that the acute phase of this pandemic will end this year, of course with one condition, the 70 percent vaccination (target is achieved) by mid this year around June, July,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told reporters in South Africa.
CAPE TOWN:
The World Health Organization’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said on Friday that the world was not yet at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as there would be more coronavirus variants.
“We have seen the virus evolve, mutate … so we know there will be more variants, more variants of concern, so we are not at the end of the pandemic,” Swaminathan told reporters in South Africa, where she was visiting vaccine manufacturing facilities with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Pandemic’s “Acute Phase” Could End By Mid Year If 70% Gets Vaccinated
The head of the WHO said Friday the acute phase of the pandemic could end this year, if around 70 percent of the world gets vaccinated.
“Our expectation is that the acute phase of this pandemic will end this year, of course with one condition, the 70 percent vaccination (target is achieved) by mid this year around June, July,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told reporters in South Africa.
“If that is to be done, the acute phase can really end, and that is what we are expecting. It’s in our hands. It’s not a matter of chance. It’s a matter of choice.”
He was speaking during a visit to Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, which has produced the first mRNA Covid vaccine made in Africa using Moderna’s sequence.
“We expect this vaccine to be more suited to the contexts in which it will be used, with fewer storage constraints and at a lower price,” said the WHO boss.
Just over half the world’s population has been fully vaccinated
Even after more than a year of Covid vaccine drives, just over half the world’s population has been fully vaccinated, media reported.
According to “Our World in Data”, nearly 54 per cent of the world’s population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, Washington Post reported.Nearly 62 per cent have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
However, the figures show a stark global divide. The data shows that less than 11 per cent of people have received at least one dose against Covid in low-income countries.That number jumps to about 55 per cent for lower-middle-income countries and nearly 80 per cent for both upper-middle-income and high-income nations, the data showed.
Public health experts, including the World Health Organisation, have been warning that vaccine inequity is prolonging the pandemic.
The US, countries of the European Union and others were criticised for buying up most of the early global supply of coronavirus vaccines, the report said.Covax, a UN-backed global vaccine-sharing initiative, was created in April 2020 to ensure vaccine access to countries that cannot afford.
The initiative struggled in the beginning as rich countries stockpiled them. In January, this year, Covax shipped its billionth dose in mid-January, and according to the WHO, African countries were sent twice as many vaccine doses in January as six months ago.
However, about 100 million Covid-19 vaccines, offered to third world nations were near expiry which the countries were forced to dump, according to the UN’s children’s fund Unicef.
“More than 9.4 billion vaccine doses have now been administered globally. But 90 countries did not reach the target of vaccinating 40 per cent of their populations by the end of last year, and 36 of those countries have not yet vaccinated 10 per cent of their populations,” Ghebreyesus said.
Ghebreyesus said that more than 85 per cent of the population of Africa – about one billion people – is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine.”We cannot end the acute phase of the pandemic unless we work together to close these gaps,” he warned.
Meanwhile, the WHO has also said that Africa is on track to end the pandemic.
Only 11 percent of Africans are vaccinated, the lowest rate in the world.
Last week the WHO’s Africa office said the continent must boost its vaccination rate “six times” to reach the 70 percent target.