Humanity has entered a "period of real danger" and many of the advances in the fight against the coronavirus are currently being "eroded." This was announced on Thursday in Geneva at a briefing for representatives of the countries - members of the World Health Organization (WHO), its Director General Tedros Adanom Ghebreyesus.
"The world is now in a period of real danger. Many of the achievements that we have achieved are now being eroded," he said.
According to the WHO data released on Thursday, the number of cases of coronavirus infection detected in the world during the pandemic exceeded 200 million. As Gebreyesus stressed, the spread of infection is fueled by increased social contacts, inconsistent measures in the health and public sphere, as well as "unequal vaccination." He recalled that more than 80% of the coronavirus vaccine "went to high and middle income countries."
The director general called the current situation in which health workers in low-income countries "do not receive the vaccine" is wrong, while residents in other countries who are not at risk of serious illness are vaccinated at the same time. "Hard-won gains [in the fight against the pandemic] are being lost, health systems are overwhelmed, as the rise in the number of infections creates a shortage of the treatment needed to save lives," Ghebreyesus said.
He recalled his call for a moratorium on booster vaccinations until at least the end of September. This would make it possible to channel the released doses of vaccine into vaccinations in low-income countries and achieve the previously announced WHO goal of immunizing at least 10% of the population in all countries of the world by the end of September.
The need for funding to fight the coronavirus outstrips available resources, the CEO said. The Strategic Pandemic Response Plan for 2021 is short of $ 900 million. "That's almost half of what we need," said the head of WHO. According to him, this year, the international mechanism for access to COVAX vaccines needs additional funding of $ 3, 8 billion: these funds are needed to purchase vaccines for 2022.