WHO reports: '85% of people in Africa do not have a single dose of Covid vaccine'
WHO Director Ghebreyesus on vaccine shortages in Africa: “Unacceptable. To date, 85 countries in the world have failed to reach the 40% immunization threshold”
WHO: 85% of the population of Africa have not received a single dose of Covid-19 vaccine
This was denounced by the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Speaking at the opening of the 150th session of the multilateral body’s executive committee, the WHO chief announced the figure and wondered how such a situation “could be acceptable to some of us”.
According to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), 69.7 per cent of the population in the European Union completed the vaccination cycle.
In the United States, the figure is 75.5 per cent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Ghebreyesus pointed out that to date 85 countries in the world have failed to reach the 40 per cent threshold of the population immunised against Covid-19, while 35 WHO member states, mostly concentrated in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, have failed to administer the drug to even 10 per cent of their citizens.
Last year, during the summit organised by the Italian presidency in Rome, the G20 had announced the goal of vaccinating 40% of the population of all countries in the world by 2021 and 70% by the middle of this year.
Covid in Africa, WHO considers Covax a positive note
On a positive note, Ghebreyesus recalled that the multilateral vaccine delivery tool Covax, made up of public and private actors and led by WHO, delivered its one billionth dose last week.
In addition, more batches of the drug have been delivered in the last ten weeks than in the previous ten months.
According to UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) figures from December, at least 100 million doses distributed by Covax have so far been destroyed by developing country governments because they were delivered close to the deadline.
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