The unequal access to doses against covid-19 accentuates, even more, the gap between rich and poor countries. Presidents and international organizations have criticized “vaccine nationalism” and hoarding by countries with more resources.
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Ensuring equitable access and coordinating the response to a pandemic that has already left more than two and a half million deaths in the world is presumed as necessary as it is utopian. In this context, the Covax program was born, whose objective is share and distribute those coveted vaccines among the most disadvantaged nations. The initiative started this week with the distribution of the first doses in the African countries of Ghana and Ivory Coast.
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What is the Covax program? It is led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) and the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI). Your goal is distribute 2 billion vaccines among countries 190 countries before the end of the year. Of these, some 1,300 will go to the 92 poorest enrolled in the plan.
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Ghana was the first country in the world to benefit from the scheme. Wednesday 600,000 doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford (and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India). Those doses were sent by UNICEF, which is also involved in the initiative.
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“Finally!” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on Twitter. “It is a day to celebrate but it is only the first step, “he warned. On Friday it was up to Ivory Coast, with 504,000 doses of the vaccine.
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In addition to these countries, others that are likely to become recipients of the first vaccines distributed by the Covax program are: Afghanistan, Haiti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia or Somalia.
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Covax would have signed agreements to obtain vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech and Oxford / AstraZeneca; also another that have not yet been approved.
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Two billion doses that will help protect the first in line: health, elderly, vulnerable. Despite everything, the Covax program has not been spared criticism for its slowness.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has assured that the United Kingdom will donate its surplus vaccines to the poorest countries. French President Emmanuel Macron has stated that the richer countries should send up to 5% of their current vaccine supplies to the most disadvantaged nations.
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