The EU has abandoned plans to restrict vaccine exports after WHO warned of vaccine nationalism



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The death toll from coronavirus infections in the world is close to 2.2 million. and the disagreement between the parties on the limited supply of vaccines fears that less privileged countries will not be able to receive vaccines for a long time.

British and Swedish company AstraZeneca have reported that they face bottlenecks in production and will only be able to supply a small fraction of the promised doses of the vaccine they have developed to the European Union and Great Britain. However, both the Community and the United Kingdom require the company to fulfill its obligations.

The EU has threatened to restrict vaccine exports to Northern Ireland by circumventing part of the Brexito deal with Britain, which allows goods to move freely across the border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK province. However, the Community subsequently abandoned these plans after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed “grave concern”.

The European Commission “will ensure that the Ireland / Northern Ireland protocol is not affected,” the EU executive said in a statement late Friday.

On Friday, the EU published a revised version of its agreement with AstraZeneca, as well as a mechanism to allow the Community to restrict exports of vaccines produced in Europe.

On Friday, AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine became the third product of its kind to receive a conditional marketing authorization in the EU. However, the move was overshadowed by a sharp diplomatic dispute.

“I hope the company [„AstraZeneca“] will deliver 400 million. dose, as agreed, “wrote Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, on Twitter, approving the company’s distribution.

Supply problems are a serious blow to a previously stagnant vaccination campaign in Europe.

Vaccine nationalism

The EU-Britain dispute highlighted the impact of drug shortages on ambitious mass vaccination programs, and not even rich countries receive enough doses of the vaccine. There are even more fears about the situation in the poorest countries.

WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday warned of “vaccine nationalism” and stressed that there is a “real danger that the very measures that could help end the pandemic – vaccines – could exacerbate “global inequality.

Vaccines and vaccines are still in their infancy in some parts of Africa and Asia.

The situation is further complicated by the emergence of the coronavirus, which has so far infected more than 101 million people around the world. people, new varieties.

Newer variants of the virus, first discovered in Britain, Brazil and South Africa, are believed to be more contagious.

Researchers fear that some vaccines do not provide adequate protection against the coronavirus strain found in South Africa. This could seriously disrupt global plans to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic with mass vaccination.

New data released Thursday and Friday show that the vaccine developed by Novovax is 89 percent effective and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is 66 percent effective.

However, while Novavax vaccines have been shown to provide good protection against the British variant of the coronavirus, they have been much less effective against the strain found in South Africa.

Pfizer and Moderna have announced that their vaccines are effective in protecting against new strains of coronavirus.

Meanwhile, WHO experts continue their closely monitored mission in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus was first discovered in late 2019. Officials hope to collect more data that can help identify the origins of the pandemic.

WHO specialists visited Jinan Hospital, which admitted the first patients to receive official confirmation of COVID-19.



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