WHO accuses "some high-income countries" of undermining equitable vaccine delivery mechanism
The director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has accused "some high-income countries" of undermining the COVAX mechanism, which aims to distribute COVID-19 vaccines equitably around the world.
"Currently, some high-income countries are signing contracts with vaccine manufacturers that undermine the agreements COVAX has in place and reduce the number of doses COVAX can purchase", said the WHO director general.
Tedros urged countries to collaborate on distribution: "If there is no vaccine to buy, the money is irrelevant. Even if we have the funds, we will only be able to deliver vaccines to the poorest countries if high-income countries cooperate in respecting the agreements COVAX has made, and the new agreements it is making".
The WHO called on nations that produce COVID-19 vaccines not to distribute them unilaterally, but to donate them to the global COVAX mechanism to ensure equity. COVAX, launched in April by the WHO, the European Commission and France, aims to give lower-income countries access to vaccines and prevent high-income states from gaining a monopoly on doses.
COVAX includes a funding mechanism that should enable 92 low-income economies to have access to vaccines. However, richer countries have accumulated the vast majority of doses, while developing states have little or no vaccine in many cases.
The WHO director is adamant: "This is not a matter of charity, it is a matter of epidemiology". "If we don't end the pandemic everywhere, we won't end it anywhere. The longer the virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to change in a way that makes vaccines less effective".
"That is why it is in the interest of all countries, including high-income countries, to ensure that health care workers, the elderly and other at-risk groups are the first to receive COVID-19 vaccines," he added. To achieve this, Tedros said, "more funding, immediate dose sharing by countries, prioritisation of COVAX contracts by manufacturers and also a significant increase in production of COVID-19 vaccines" are needed.
"More COVID-19 vaccines are being developed, approved and produced. There will be enough for everyone. But for now and for the rest of this year, vaccines will be a limited resource. We must use them as strategically as we can", he warned.
Tedros welcomed the behaviour of the G7 countries and the European Union, which pledged more than 3.5 billion euros in funding to finance the equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and therapies for EVID-19. They also pledged to share doses with COVAX. "The G7 countries have shown leadership, but we need everyone to step up".
The WHO was sympathetic to the political pressures facing the leaders of high-income states, but Tedros himself had previously warned that the world faces "catastrophic moral failure" if COVID-19 vaccines are not distributed equitably.
There are many voices, including within the World Health Organisation, calling on both Western governments and major dose manufacturers to relinquish intellectual property rights to vaccines to allow for increased production and more equitable distribution.
The WHO director general's call for unity and cooperation contrasts with moves by major powers in recent weeks. China is preparing agreements in Africa, while Russia is distributing vaccines in Latin America. The European Union, for its part, is considering sending more vaccines to the poorest countries, all outside the COVAX mechanism.
Vaccine diplomacy is on the rise. The most prominent cases are China and Russia. Beijing has offered hundreds of thousands of doses of its Sinopharm vaccine to Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea; Moscow is negotiating the delivery of doses of its Sputnik V vaccine with Croatia while the first doses are already on their way to Mexico.