COVAX is to distribute 14.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to 31 more countries next week, the WHO said on Friday, as it warned people not to waste, through complacency, the hope that vaccines bring.
The COVAX global vaccine-sharing facility shipped more than 20 million doses to 20 countries, as the scheme aimed at ensuring poorer nations receive access to jabs took off this week.
The WHO voiced fears that further waves of COVID-19 could be on the way if people think the rollout of vaccines around the world means the crisis is over.
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“The arrival of vaccine is a moment of great hope, but it potentially also is a moment where we lose concentration,” WHO Health Emergencies Program executive director Michael Ryan told a news conference.
“I really am very concerned that ... we think we’re through this. We’re not, and countries are going to lurch back into third and fourth surges if we’re not careful,” he said.
“We should not waste the hope that vaccines bring ... by dropping our guard in other areas,” he added.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the first full week of the COVAX rollout, but said that wealthy countries were nonetheless still leaving others behind in the vaccination rush.
Within Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan and Uganda have received their first doses through the program.
Elsewhere, Cambodia, Colombia, India, Moldova, the Philippines and South Korea have also taken deliveries.
He called for vaccine production to be urgently ramped up, including through linking manufacturers with rival companies that have spare capacity.
Tedros also said that the planet would be feeling the mental scars from the pandemic for years to come, adding that the scale of its impact would be worse than during the recovery from World War II.
“The whole world is affected. Each and every individual. That means mass trauma, which is beyond proportion. Even bigger than what the world experienced after the Second World War,” he said. “And when there is mass trauma it affects communities for many years to come.”
“Countries have to see it as such and prepare for that,” he added. “Mass, mass trauma.”
The virus has killed at least 2.58 million people since it first emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources.
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