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Poorer countries are unlikely to gain substantial access to Covid-19 vaccines until the second half of next year, meaning richer European countries could remain vulnerable to new waves of infection for years, the chief said. UN humanitarian.
“For poorer countries, there will possibly be small amounts of vaccine in the second quarter of next year, probably not much more than that for a while after that, and it is 2022 and beyond when the greatest strides are made,” Mark Lowcock , the -secretary general of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said in an interview. “That is the best judgment, recognizing that large quantities depend on the number of licensed vaccines, the manufacture, and then the solution the world comes up with about who gets what and when.”
Lowcock said that therefore European countries would be “dealing with” the coronavirus in 2022 and probably beyond, even if their economies recovered in 2021.
“It is very likely that the places where the virus finds it easier to survive longer are fragile states, affected by conflicts with weak institutions, but the virus can reach everywhere,” he said. “It will be true that no place is safe until everyone is safe because it is a globalized world.
“If this simply turns into a race in which those who have greater financial liquidity and will pay more [get first access], then the poorest countries will be at the end of the queue. “
Lowcock said it was understandable that countries that had funded vaccine research and manufacturing would seek first access, but warned that vaccine nationalism would backfire and backfire.
A UN-led vaccine pledge, known as Covax, has managed to secure 700 million doses of vaccines to be distributed to the 92 low-income countries that have signed up, but still Lowcock said big problems remain, including the possibility that the focus on a Covid vaccine would divert money and resources from traditional immunization programs that he claimed had the ability to save more lives.
The former senior British official explained: “You can already see in all developed countries that it is proving to be a great logistical and institutional challenge to cover the population quickly enough with the personnel and institutions available. That will be an even bigger problem in countries with very weak public health systems.
“Some of these countries rely heavily on NGOs, UNICEF or the World Health Organization to help implement their immunization programs, so there will be great challenges that go beyond the challenges of the cold chain. . Getting to inaccessible places and having the staff to run these programs will be a big challenge. “
He said it might be necessary to secure special funding within Covax to ensure that refugees and internally displaced persons in humanitarian settings not necessarily covered by a country’s vaccination program receive assistance. He said that 1% of the world’s population, 60 million people, now lived in environments where they were not under the control or authority of a government, but under the rule of an opposition, extremist or criminal group.
He said that overall, Covax was going to have a significant mitigating impact, but “we are within billions of dollars of the finances needed to help countries that might not otherwise have access to a vaccine. There is a real concern that we will see cash transfers to Covax leading to a deficit in traditional immunization programs. “
He said: “This year there has been a substantial erosion of routine vaccinations with real consequences for deadly diseases like diphtheria and measles from which children have been largely protected in recent years. This year, either due to closures or tax restrictions, 80 million children in the second and third trimesters of children did not receive their vaccines on time. That is a real problem now. “
As a former permanent secretary to the UK’s department for international development, Lowcock also challenged the UK government to explain what it was trying to cut by reducing the overall size of the UK foreign aid program to just 0.5% of GDP in 2021, a cut that would cut up to £ 5bn from the £ 15bn aid program.
“The UK’s foreign aid program has always been well targeted at the world’s poorest countries and life-saving activities,” he said. “This is going to be a very big cut and it is hard for me to think that the things that really matter a lot will not be affected … A relatively small savings to the UK budget is going to have huge implications for the world. poorer people. “
