The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned on Monday that the world “is on the brink of catastrophic moral failure” due to the uneven distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Why it’s important: Tedros noted during an executive session that 39 million doses of vaccine had been administered in 49 higher-income countries, while one lower-income country had “only 25 doses.”
- This “I-first” approach will end up “prolonging the pandemic, the restrictions needed to contain it, and the human and economic suffering,” he added.
Note: The WHO itself faced an interim report on Monday for being slow to respond to the outbreak after it was first detected in late 2019 in China, which was also noted for failures at first.
- “The global pandemic alert system is not fit for purpose,” said the preliminary report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, an independent group commissioned by the WHO.
- “The WHO has been poorly equipped to do the job.”
What they say: China’s public health measures “could have been implemented more strongly by local and national health authorities” in January, the report’s expert group, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, said. former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
- Experts noted that it was not clear why the WHO did not meet until the third week of January 2020 nor why it could not agree to declare a public health emergency of international concern until a week later.
What to see: A team of researchers from the World Health Organization is in Wuhan (China) to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
- Tedros said his focus is on deploying the global COVAX vaccine sharing system, which will begin next month. More than 180 countries have joined the WHO-led plan.
- He hopes that for World Health Day, April 7, COVID-19 vaccines “will be administered in all countries, as a symbol of hope to overcome both the pandemic and the inequalities that are at stake. origin of so many global health challenges ”.