AMMAN — The US
announced that it would share 19 million doses of the
COVID-19 vaccine with the
COVAX initiative, part of a plan to share 80 million doses globally by the end
of June, however, Mohannad Al-Nsour, executive director of the Eastern
Mediterranean Public Health Network and member of the National Epidemiological
Committee, said the donation is “a little bit late.”
اضافة اعلان
While it is also
“appreciated,” and a much needed boost for the vaccine sharing initiative, Nsour
argued that wealthy countries have been reluctant to donate significant numbers
of doses to the initiative, leading to a wide disparity in the vaccination
rates between high-and low-income countries.
“This is a huge
problem,” he said.
The COVAX
initiative, founded by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness
Innovations, and the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to both distribute
vaccines and the equipment and knowledge needed to administer them. “It’s
sharing to make sure that we have equitable health and secure vaccine support
for all the countries over the world,” Nsour said.
In late May at
the Paris Peace Forum Spring Meeting, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, described a state of “vaccine apartheid”, explaining that
middle-to-low income countries, which account for almost half the world’s population,
have only received 17 percent of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines.
Likewise, Nsour
described the phenomenon of vaccine nationalism, through which governments
prioritize vaccinating their own populations — at the expense of those in
lower-income countries. In a previous interview with Jordan News, he pointed
out that some wealthy nations, like the US and Canada, are even beginning to
vaccinate children while health workers in other countries still wait for their
shots. His comment echoed the head of WHO, Ghebreyesus, who has urged wealthy
nations to delay vaccinating children in favor of donating excess doses to
COVAX.
But even from the
most selfish perspective, Nsour argued, countries have a motivation to quickly
distribute the jabs across the globe. “Because in addition to the principles that we expected the world to
be committed to, from the epidemiological point of view, the world cannot be
secure if (...) the virus keeps circulating in countries with low (vaccine)
coverage rates,” he said. “As long as we see low coverage rates, we expect to see
new mutations and it means danger and insecurity for other countries.”
He highlighted
the example of India, where the Delta variant originated. “What we saw in India, it has
now affected the whole world,” he said. “No one is secure. No one will be safe unless
everyone is,” he added, referencing a statement made
by the UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed.
The
epidemiologist emphasized the importance of the “global health security
agenda,” describing the importance of coming together to fight a common enemy.
“The enemy is a health enemy, the virus.”
In addition to
the struggle to encourage wealthy countries to donate doses in the first place,
COVAX has also run into problems with countries who did commit doses failing to deliver. An Indian company, for
instance, had committed to donate a large number of COVID-19 vaccines to COVAX,
which was disrupted by the country’s own massive outbreak. The BBC reported
in mid-May that COVAX was 140-million doses short due to the crisis.
“COVAX is
struggling,” said Nsour. “So the Biden administration, with this announcement,
solved part of the problem.”
He called for
countries to follow the US’ lead to distribute their excess doses to COVAX. “We
have the example,” he said. “And that’s why we need to put more pressure on
other countries.”
For Jordan, Nsour
said, the donation of more vaccines to COVAX will be “very good.”
“It’s very good
to make sure that we are increasing our coverage rates for our citizens and
people who are residing in our territory,” he said.
On June 3, Jordan
received 146 thousands of the AstraZeneca vaccine through COVAX, its third batch
of the shots. The country expects to receive a total of 2 million doses of
AstraZeneca through COVAX, enough to vaccinate almost 10 percent of the
population, as previously reported by Jordan News.
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