UNICEF – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore told CNBC that she was “very concerned” about the current Covid-19 crisis in India and urged the world to send urgent aid to the country.

During World Immunization Week, Fore also said it was a “race to save lives” through vaccination, especially in some of the world’s poorest countries with “very fragile” health systems.

India is in the midst of a deadly second wave of the virus. On Saturday, daily coronavirus cases in the country went over 400,000 for the first time; The total number of cases in India has now exceeded 19 million and more than 215,000 people have died of Covid in the country.

“It is worrying for a number of reasons. First, is it a forerunner of what could happen in other countries, particularly in African countries, with much weaker health systems?” Fore said last week.

“It’s worrying because their healthcare system is overwhelmed. It’s the need for oxygen and therapeutics that we just haven’t seen in this pandemic in another country of this magnitude.”

People wearing face masks wait to receive a vaccine against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a vaccination center in Mumbai, India, on April 26, 2021.

Niharika Kulkarni | Reuters

Fore said both UNICEF and COVAX’s global immunization program had sent aid to the country, and help from other nations made a big difference. “But it is not enough because India is part of our supply chain. So this is where we source a lot of the vaccines and we now have to help India as the world,” she added.

UNICEF is the United Nations agency responsible for helping children around the world.

“Help us now”

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world has stopped paying attention to other routine vaccinations, warned Fore. Around 60 routine vaccination campaigns have been halted around the world as countries focus on fighting the pandemic.

To address these challenges while helping recovery from the global pandemic, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and other partners are supporting a global strategy known as the Immunization Agenda 2030. The initiative aims to save 50 million lives on “an ambitious new global strategy to maximize the life-saving effects of vaccines through stronger immunization systems”.

Fore said around half of the world’s vaccinations come from routine UNICEF vaccinations for children.

“Polio, measles, yellow fever … all of these are vaccines that children need, but they are also vaccines that adults need. So we are asking families to come to primary health clinics in their own communities, bring in and have their children If you are vaccinated against these childhood diseases, you will also get a Covid vaccine and we can save 50 million lives, “she said.

When asked if she had a message for world leaders today, Fore said, “Well, help us now.”

Henrietta H. Fore, Managing Director of UNICEF on July 05, 2018 in BERLIN, GERMANY.

Ute Grabowsky / Photo library via Getty Images

“We are concerned that the world is ignoring things like routine vaccinations. We cannot lose this population, our children, to an epidemic while we worry about Covid as a pandemic for our world. Please help us now,” she said added.

Despite the ongoing global pandemic, Fore said it was time to focus on such initiatives.

“People are now realizing that vaccines are important, that vaccines work, that they save lives, and right now we are in a race to save lives,” she said.

“So if we can save them through a routine vaccination program that targets everyone in a society, both routine vaccinations and Covid will help.”

Global investment

However, Fore told CNBC that it can be difficult to focus global investments on supporting the programs.

“The Covax facility called for $ 23 billion, which sounds like a huge amount, but when you look at global GDP and opportunities, it’s a very small number,” she said.

“So they realize that we as a world can afford this, and if we could bring out vaccines for children and adults in the years to come, we would be a world that would have more justice, more fairness and better health across the board.”

A pharmacist prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, California, United States.

Bing Guan | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The global alliance, which aims to provide coronavirus vaccines to poor nations, announced Friday that it has supply agreements to provide nearly 2 billion doses and could ship them in the first quarter of its approval.

There are 190 countries and territories participating in COVAX, which is jointly managed by the World Health Organization Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation. The facility said it could secure the cans through additional supply agreements with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

COVAX plans to begin first shipments in the first quarter of 2021, when the drugs are approved. Enough doses should be given in the first half of next year to protect health and social workers in participating economies, the Alliance said. COVAX plans to ship at least 1.3 billion doses to 92 low and middle-income countries that will participate in the facility sometime next year.

“The arrival of vaccines gives us all a glimpse into the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, in a statement. “But we will only really end the pandemic if we end it everywhere at the same time. That means that it is important to vaccinate some people in all countries, rather than all people in some countries.”

UNICEF announced on Friday that up to 850 tons of Covid-19 vaccines per month could be shipped to middle- to low-income countries over the next year. Commercial airlines will be able to deliver the vaccines to almost all of the 92 countries participating in COVAX, a UNICEF statement said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund is a United Nations agency that provides humanitarian aid to children around the world. UNICEF will work with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to coordinate vaccine procurement and support dispensing of the doses, said Gavi.

The humanitarian organization said the shots will likely be shipped primarily via existing passenger and cargo flights, although some charter flights or alternative modes of transportation will be required for hard-to-reach countries.

However, the world’s poorest countries are still facing a budget gap of $ 133 million for the distribution and storage of the cans, UNICEF said. According to the organization, which assesses global air cargo capacity and routes, the airline’s deliveries would cost the airline up to an estimated $ 70 million.

Countries will face additional challenges once the cans arrive, UNICEF said.

The temperature requirements for the vaccines being developed are range and require cold chain supply lines, trained medical staff and stronger contact efforts, said Henrietta Fore, executive director at UNICEF, in a statement released Friday.

“This is a mammoth and historic endeavor,” Fore said in a statement. “The scale of the task is huge and the stakes have never been higher, but we are ready to take on this.”

UNICEF said it would take $ 410 million to help countries deliver the vaccines and purchase therapeutic drugs and diagnostic tools over the next year. Funding has been a problem for the COVAX facility, which according to a Reuters report on Wednesday, citing internal documents, faces a “very high” risk of default due to lack of funds, delivery risks and complex contractual arrangements.