The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom, said governments need to donate doses for the world to fully realize the full power of COVID-19 vaccines, reported CGTN Africa.
Tedros made the remarks on Friday at the Munich Security Conference which brings together some of the world’s most senior decision-makers. He highlighted three things that are needed to realize the full power of vaccines. He said nations producing coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines to donate them to the global Covax scheme to ensure fairness in vaccine distribution.
“First, we need governments to fully fund COVAX, and to donate doses now,” the WHO head said. “Second, because COVAX buys vaccines that have WHO emergency use listing, we need manufacturers to share their full dossiers with WHO at the same time as they submit them to other regulators.”
Tedros said individuals also need to raise their voices to advocate for vaccine equity. He noted that the longer time it takes to suppress the coronavirus, the more opportunity it has to mutate, making vaccines less effective.
He assured that there will be enough doses for everyone because more vaccines will continue to be developed, approved, and produced.
Tedros also assured that the fight against COVID-19 had shown some positive results.
“Yes, cases and deaths are declining, we have a toolbox of proven public health measures, and we now have powerful new tools that we could only dream about a year ago,” the WHO head said.
According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), African countries have reported a total of 3,799,029 COVID-19 cases as of Friday evening. The death toll from COVID-19 on the continent has reached 100,359, it added. Around 3,349,323 people have recovered from the virus across the continent so far.
South Africa has reported 48,708 deaths from COVID-19, the highest death toll in Africa, followed by Egypt and Morocco with 10,201 and 8,524, respectively.
