Tag: Poorer

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WHO says it urgently wants $7.7 billion to assist poorer nations survive delta Covid variant

WHO says it urgently needs $7.7 billion to help poorer nations survive delta Covid variant

Director General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on July 28, 2021.

Jaber Abdulkhaleg | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The World Health Organization is calling for $ 7.7 billion, which officials say is badly needed to help low-income countries survive the Delta-Covid variant through the provision of vaccines, oxygen and medical care.

The funds will be used for the WHO’s Access to Covid-19 Tools program, or ACT, accelerator program that provides critical medical supplies to fight the coronavirus worldwide, said Dr. Bruce Aylward, senior advisor to the WHO director-general, during a question and answer session with WHO officials, streamed a live stream on their social media accounts on Tuesday.

Aylward said the funds are needed to partially cover a $ 16.8 billion shortfall that hampers WHO’s ability to fight the pandemic in developing countries with little or no access to vaccines.

“Aside from the moral question – people shouldn’t die if the technology is available elsewhere, you know, technology should help humanity as a whole – there is also the problem that we can’t solve this pandemic in one country at a time. “Said Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO Deputy Director General for Access to Medicines, Vaccines and Medicines.

“That’s the reality,” she continued. “We have to help the countries move closer together. Otherwise we will live with this virus much longer than necessary.”

WHO officials have set a goal to vaccinate at least 10% of the world’s population by the end of September, at least 40% by the end of this year, and 70% by the middle of next year. Some nations around the world have not yet started their vaccination campaigns, while wealthier countries like the US and Israel have already fully vaccinated more than half of their populations.

Aylward said people in poorer countries who have a fever or other symptoms don’t have the test materials to know if it’s Covid or other diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia or HIV. In addition to providing doses of vaccine, Aylward said the funding will also include Covid testing, oxygen treatments and masks.

Wealthy nations have spent trillions of dollars to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, he said. “Your economy tells you to vaccinate the world and of course we didn’t listen,” he said.

The WHO previously said it was in dire need of $ 7.7 billion to run the ACT Accelerator, and at that point was calling for an additional $ 3.8 billion to buy 760 million doses of Covid vaccine for delivery the next Year, reported Reuters.

“This is the defining moment of our time,” said Aylward. “At some point we look back and that will be the question: How did you behave in those crucial moments?”

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World News

G-7 leaders to pledge 1 billion doses of Covid vaccines to poorer nations

G-7 leaders to pledge 1 billion doses of Covid vaccines to poorer nations

LONDON – The G-7 leaders are expected to pledge 1 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine to poorer nations this weekend to allay concerns about vaccine nationalism.

The world’s most advanced economies – as the G-7 defines itself – have been criticized for not sharing more vaccines with countries that have fewer resources. For example, the United States has a legal requirement that it cannot send vaccines abroad until it has reached satisfactory levels of vaccination within its borders. The UK and the EU have also received similar criticism.

However, the G-7 countries – the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – want to end the pandemic next year and will increase their individual contributions, according to a statement released by the UK government on Thursday.

The UK already announced on Thursday that it would donate at least 100 million surplus coronavirus vaccine doses within the next year. The United States also announced earlier this week that it would donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech shot to low-income countries.

On Thursday, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who will represent the EU in the G-7, also said: “We are signing the G-7’s goal of ending the pandemic by 2022 through increased global vaccination.”

Sharing vaccines is described by health officials as the only way to end the pandemic completely. Because as long as the virus exists, it can mutate and spread around the world. At the same time, measures like lockdowns and social distancing are likely to continue to affect global economic performance.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 174 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 3.7 million deaths worldwide since the pandemic broke out in early 2020.

The pandemic is at the center of discussions among G-7 leaders, whose three-day summit in Cornwall, England, kicks off on Friday.

In this context, the US surprised other heads of state and government last month by supporting the waiver of intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines.

Health experts, human rights groups and international medical charities argue that this is vital to urgently addressing the global vaccine shortage amid the pandemic and ultimately avoiding a prolongation of the health crisis. However, vaccine makers say this could disrupt the flow of raw materials and result in less investment in health research by smaller biotech innovators.

This opinion is also shared by some EU leaders, in particular French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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Health

White Home lays out plan to share tens of millions of doses with poorer nations

White House lays out plan to share millions of doses with poorer nations

The Oxford-AstraZeneca covid vaccine.

Karwai Tang | Getty Images

The U.S. government will share the majority of its donated Covid-19 vaccine doses through COVAX, the World Health Organization-led program that provides shots to countries in need, the White House announced Thursday.

The Biden administration has committed to donating at least 20 million doses of Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson as well as 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccines, which has not yet been authorized for use in the United States.

The U.S. plans to allocate 75% of the vaccines through the COVAX global vaccine sharing program, the White House in an email. Of the first 25 million doses, about 6 million will go to countries in South and Central America, 7 million to Asia and 5 million to Africa, the White House said. About 6 million will go to neighboring countries and U.S. allies.

At least 25% of shots will be kept for immediate U.S. needs and for “countries in need, those experiencing surges, immediate neighbors, and other countries that have requested immediate U.S. assistance,” according to the plan.

The administration is donating the shots to “save lives” and thwart the emergence of new variants,  national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday.

“The United States is not doing this as some kind of back-and-forth deal where we are getting something in return,” Sullivan said at a White House briefing. “We are giving these for a single purpose. It is the purpose of ending this pandemic.”

The announcement comes as world leaders urge wealthy nations such as the U.S. to donate Covid shots to other countries. While the U.S. has returned to some form of normality as more Americans get vaccinated and new cases fall, other countries, like India, have experienced huge outbreaks.

Just last week, the WHO said Africa needed at least 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine within six weeks to get the second round of shots to people who have received the first.

The head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations told Reuters that leaders of the Group of 7 rich nations must donate shots urgently to avoid an outcome akin to the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people.

“It’s a moral imperative if we want to avoid situations like Peru, if we want to avoid impacts that could rival those of the 1918 flu, we must send vaccine to countries to protect their health-care workers and protect the vulnerable populations now,” Richard Hatchett, chief executive of CEPI which co-runs the COVAX vaccine sharing facility, told Reuters.

In addition to donating the doses, the White House also announced it is lifting restrictions as part of the Defense Production Act that gave the U.S. priority for vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Novavax.

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Health

Covid-19 Information: Even in Poorer Neighborhoods, the Rich Are Lining Up for Vaccines

Covid-19 News: Even in Poorer Neighborhoods, the Wealthy Are Lining Up for Vaccines

“It looked like Ward 3 was being punished for being more familiar with computers,” said Mary Cheh, a member of the city council who represents the station, who routinely has homes near American University or the Potomac River sold for more than $ 2 million. “I was inundated with emails from people who were just really angry about it.”

The day after the policy change, Ms. Cheh wrote to constituents, quoting the shooting data, and saying that “our fear of getting one right away shouldn’t tarnish the pursuit of fair vaccine distribution.”

“When I sent this message, people were like, ‘Oh, thanks, I understand now,” Ms. Cheh said. Still, she called the city’s new system “a very blunt instrument” and said it was fairer to meet the needs of that Basing the risk of an individual, not that of a whole neighborhood.

70-year-old Adora Iris Lee lives in one of Washington’s most important neighborhoods – Congress Heights, part of Ward 8 in the southern part of the district, which is severely black and has seen the highest number of Covid deaths. She said she was on hold for more than three hours but was given appointments for herself and her mother, who is 93 years old.

“Being able to call at a time that was reserved for us was good for me,” said Ms. Lee. “People who live in Station 3 and people who live in Station 8 have different social realities. We’re not kidding. “

Even so, Mr. Jones of Bread for the City said that even with the new system, hardly any of the people who came to his clinic for admissions were his regular patients. The clinic began reaching out to its regulars and, with the permission of the city, reserved all first doses for them and for clients of other social organizations last week.

“It’s not just about keeping the seats for the people,” said Jones. “Somehow we have to persuade them to use these spots.”