130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to be vaccinated – WHO

WHO has disclosed that around 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

It is estimated globally that about 130 countries, with a total of 2.5 billion people, are yet to be administered with a single dose of Covid -19 vaccine.

By Johnson Uche

This disclosure was made by the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus at a regular press briefing on COVID-19, in Geneva: “Around 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.”

According to Dr Tedros:

• “On Wednesday, COVAX published its forecast for the distribution of vaccines to participating countries. Countries are ready to go, but the vaccines aren’t there. We need countries to share doses, once they have finished vaccinating health workers and older people.
• “We also need a massive scale-up in production. Manufacturers can do more: having received substantial public funding, we encourage all manufacturers to share their data and technology to ensure global equitable access to vaccines.’’

What you should know

• Three-quarters of all COVID-19 vaccinations are only in 10 countries, representing for almost 60 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• Manufacturing companies were implored to share their dossiers with WHO faster and more fully than they have been doing so that the oragnisation would review them for emergency use listing.
• Manufacturing companies were called upon to emulate the recent announcement by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi that it would make its manufacturing infrastructure available for the production of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
• “Companies can also issue non-exclusive licenses to allow other producers to manufacture their vaccine – a mechanism that has been used before to expand access to treatments for HIV and hepatitis C.”