World News

Wealthy countries are buying all COVID vaccines

[ad_1]

MEXICO CITY – In recent weeks, Britain and the United States have seen a lot of peace when citizens began to be vaccinated COVID-19 – but in much of Latin America, across much of Africa and much of Asia, the news has mixed resignation and anger.

For many people in development there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

These countries have been struggling to gain access to the long-awaited vaccines after rich countries saved enough doses to vaccinate several populations.

“International solidarity needs to grow,” Martha Delgado, a Mexican official in charge of negotiating vaccine contracts in the country, told BuzzFeed News. Following concerns around the developing world, he warned that there will be no end to the global pandemic until everyone gets vaccinated. He wants the US and other Western countries to think outside their borders and immediate needs. “No one will be safe until everyone is vaccinated,” he said.

Canada, for example, has pre-ordered the number it needs to include 38 million citizens. The UK has secured enough to cover the population almost three times. The European Union and the US can immunize almost the entire population twice with the number of doses of vaccine stored. In the meantime, almost a quarter of the world’s population he will not be able to access the vaccine until at least 2022, according to medical journal BMJ.

To date, some of the poorest countries most affected by the virus have only pre-orders to cover a small portion of their population. According to the New York Times, Peru, where the country left a huge shortage of oxygen earlier this year, and El Salvador, where more than 1 in 4 people are below the poverty line, have previously made doses for less than half the population. analysis.

Countries with pre-emptions but no political or economic power will have to wait longer than the great powers. Mexico, according to its government, has secured contracts with various pharmaceutical companies to inoculate COVID-19 out of 126 million citizens against COVID-19, and will not complete the operation until March 2022.

Delgado told the BBC that “at least in Mexico we have the money to buy vaccines,” said Xavier Tello, a health policy expert in Mexico City. retweeted The link to the interview reads, “I may have the money to buy a Tesla; but if someone else has already paid for it, I’ll probably have to be on the waiting list.”

Many in Mexico say the country can’t wait much longer. On paper, the country has the fourth highest number of deaths, after the US, Brazil and India, but the official number (118,598) is likely to be much lower than the number of deaths. At least 60,000 more “abuse”Deaths on them during 2020.

And Mexican health workers say PPE has been limited by disability, fatigue and grief. They have more than 2,250 doctors, nurses and medical staff he died, according to government numbers. Almost three times the Mexican population, some 1,500 health workers They died in the US.

Who takes how many vaccines and when has opened an unprecedented ethical debate. Should governments prioritize their citizens? Should the first vaccines be allocated to a certain proportion of the population in each country? Should initial doses be given to people at risk around the world before they are distributed among those without comorbidities?

Arthur Caplan, head of the Medical Ethics Division at the NYU School of Medicine, said he is somewhat in favor of the first-thinking school of vaccine nationalists. Countries that can afford it should take care of themselves first, “plus a little more for insurance,” if current vaccines only offer immunity for a limited time and need reinforcement in the near future.

But when it comes to making a more ethical decision, Caplan said a state should inoculate the same population in other countries after the inclusion of its health workers, older people and people with pre-existing conditions, before the inclusion of young and low-income adults. -population risk.

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc in the world, where equity does not make decisions when it comes to distributing vaccines among countries.

“Wealthy countries are in a very bad situation, they’re not thinking about that,” Caplan told BuzzFeed News.

Although the second option – allocating vaccines to the same number of people in each country – may seem more fair, it may be effective. Ignacio Mastroleo, Argentine expert in medical ethics and piece The World Health Organization’s ethics and COVID-19 expert group stated that giving the same number of vaccines in Peru and Poland, for example, would not take into account that the virus killed 11,600 more people in the former than in the latter (their populations are 32 million and 38 million, respectively).

This option is “not sensitive to the needs of the population,” Mastroleo said, adding that Peru’s poverty rate is 10 times higher than Poland’s.

Mastroleo said that if silver coverage is not the case in the 2009 swine flu pandemic, international organizations are making efforts to help equalize access to vaccines this time around. One of these mechanisms, co-founded by the WHO and known as COVAX, is a global set of vaccines that will have access to the poorest countries. But the scheme will supply less than 20% of the population in 92 low- and middle-income countries.

It is likely that different access to vaccines will not only occur between countries, but also within them, leaving millions of vulnerable people vulnerable to protection against the virus. On Monday, Colombian President Iván Duque announced conversation He told Blu Radio that there is no intention to include undocumented people, as doing so could create a “seal” for immigrants in Colombia. There are currently 1.7 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, about 55% of whom have no citizenship. Most fled Venezuela from an economic and humanitarian crisis.

According to Delgado, there may not be support for millions of people until the end of 2021 or later, when countries that have stored excess vaccines are sold or given to poorer states.

“This is the wrong strategy,” Delgado said. Relief will come sooner when the world in general stops when people “seek their salvation”.



[ad_2]

Source link

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button