D.he World Health Organization (WHO) has urged governments not to vaccinate children against the coronavirus until all elderly and vulnerable people worldwide have received immune protection. The primary goal must be to provide all countries with vaccine for the risk groups, said the head of the immunization department of the WHO, Kate O’Brien, on Friday. Only then should groups with a much lower risk of contracting Covid-19 be vaccinated.
Canada was the first country to approve BioNTech / Pfizer’s corona vaccine for children and adolescents aged twelve and over on Wednesday. The vaccine had previously only been approved in Canada for adolescents aged 16 and over. According to media reports, the US wants to release the BioNTech vaccine for twelve to 15-year-olds in the coming week. The EU Medicines Agency (EMA) is also currently examining approval for children aged twelve and over.
Poorer countries could be neglected
While such approvals make vaccinations for millions more people in rich countries possible, the WHO worries that they are hampering vaccination campaigns in Africa and other poorer countries.
WHO Secretary General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the unequal distribution of vaccines between poor and rich countries as unacceptable on Friday.
He called on the seven most important industrialized countries to ensure the fair and equal distribution of the vaccine. This is the only way to actually defeat the pandemic.
According to AFP counts, almost 1.25 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide to date. 45 percent of this was given in the high-income countries, where 16 percent of the world’s population live. Only 0.3 percent went to the 29 poorest countries, where nine percent of the world’s population live. The WHO is missing billions of dollars to speed up vaccinations there.
High risk of further devastating outbreaks
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns of the risk of further devastating corona outbreaks along the lines of India. In several other countries, the right precautions were lacking, said WHO emergency aid coordinator Mike Ryan on Friday in Geneva.
“This virus has tremendous kinetic energy,” said Ryan. “It has massive infectious power, and we have to slow the spread.” In some countries, the situation is already developing in a similar way to India, said Ryan, without giving a name. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later mentioned the tense situation in Brazil and Nepal. Other countries could soon find themselves in a similar emergency.
Tedros appealed to rich countries to donate more vaccination doses. This is not an act of charity, but in the interests of rich countries, because otherwise variants can develop elsewhere that can trigger new waves of infection worldwide.
Emergency approval for China’s Sinopharm
Meanwhile, the WHO has given the Chinese company Sinopharm emergency approval for its corona vaccine. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also announced the decision on Friday in Geneva. This allows UN organizations to buy and distribute the funds. China already promised ten million doses in February to the international UN vaccination program Covax, which many poorer countries rely on.
The independent advisory board SAGE approved the vaccine for people over the age of 18, Tedros said. Two doses are necessary for full vaccination protection. SAGE states the effectiveness with 79 percent. WHO emergency approval already exists for the corona vaccines from BioNTech / Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Janssen / Johnson & Johnson and Moderna. A second Chinese vaccine, from Sinovac, is still being tested by the WHO, similar to other vaccines, including the Russian substance Sputnik V and the drug from the US company Novavax.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/fair-distribution-of-vaccines-who-warns-before-the-children-first-vaccinate-the-elderly-and-the-endangered-worldwide/
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