[ad_1]
Five million lives have already been lost worldwide as a result of COVID-19, and the World Health Organization’s access to the COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (WHO / ACT-A) has plagued it. guess Five million more lives will be lost in the coming months as a result of the disease. It is also worrying that COVID-19 cases will grow from the 260 million to 460 million so far confirmed by the end of 2022.
The damage to COVID-19 has been so catastrophic, where, when World Health Assembly (WHA) meets in a special session, starting on November 29, whose task is only to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. The damage done to COVID-19 has been so damaging that we now need an internationally binding agreement to prevent future outbreaks from turning into a pandemic again.
In the words of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a new agreement should have a high level of commitment to health based on international equity and solidarity. In addition to ensuring that all people have fair access to their health, regardless of their wealth or income, the international community should ensure the fair use and distribution of available medical resources. To do this, we need a fully functioning global surveillance system, accelerating and sharing emergency assistance and predictable finances.
Nothing makes this clearer than the need for our collective failure, as an international community, to ensure an equitable distribution of vaccines to fulfill our promise. In fact, thanks to excellent science and strong manufacturing performance, we will produce 12 billion doses of vaccine for Christmas (enough to vaccinate all adults in the world), while 95 percent of adults still remain unprotected in low-income countries. This is perhaps the biggest public policy failure of our time.
The internationally agreed adult vaccination target for the country (40% by December) will not be missed by 82 countries. According to current trends, it will take until Easter to get closer to at least 40 percent, and yet dozens of countries can miss out. In fact, since the June G7 meeting, where leaders promised to include the entire world by 2022, the gap between those with and without vaccines has widened rather than narrowed.
In high-income countries, vaccination rates have now risen from 40 per cent to 60-70 per cent in June, but have moved at a glacial pace in low-income countries: from 1 per cent to less than 5 per cent. In fact, six adults are receiving boosters in middle- and high-income countries for every adult currently in a low-income country, and 90 percent of African health workers remain unprotected.
Although major regional initiatives such as AVAT to buy vaccines in the African Union have taken steps to address the inequality gap, buying Johnson & Johnson 400 million single vaccines and another 110 million doses to Moderna (50 million will arrive between December and March). it is still not enough to meet the needs of a continent of 1.3 billion people.
This difference is simply explained by the fact that 89% of all vaccines have been purchased by the G20, the richest countries in the world, and now retain control of 71% of future shipments. Promises to give vaccines to the Global South from the North have fallen short: Only 22 percent of donations promised by America have been sent. Europe, the UK and Canada have been considerably worse and have only sent 15, 10 and 5 per cent respectively.
COVAX, the global vaccine distribution agency, which expected to send two billion vaccines by December, now expects only two-thirds of that number. Such is the scale of vaccine storage in the richest countries, according to the Airfinity health data research team, that by the end of 2021, 100 million doses of unused doses in the G20 warehouse will exceed and be wasted.
For G20 countries, having and storing life-saving vaccines and denying them to the poorest countries is morally indefensible. Leaving tens of millions of doses to waste is an act of medical and social vandalism that may never be forgotten or forgiven. The urgent, ongoing, monthly delivery plan and air transport of vaccines, coordinated by G20 countries, now require unused capacity to use vaccines where they are most needed.
But differences in vaccines show why fundamental changes are needed to make health decisions in the international architecture. Of course, few international organizations have been given the freedom and independence to make binding decisions that national governments must comply with. Because the decisions of the World Trade Organization Court of Appeal and the International Criminal Court are firm, they are areas that an international body can oversee about nation-states and are therefore under attack by an opposing coalition. internationalists.
There is also a global health pact aimed at reducing the demand and supply of tobacco, and a 2011 agreement to ensure that the WHO can get the flu vaccine when needed, so that a binding global agreement can be made by world health authorities. More to prevent, detect, prepare for and control a pandemic still eludes us.
The special summit of the World Health Assembly offers us a unique opportunity to address these gaps as a start to a process that will urgently develop an international agreement that is legally binding under the WHO Constitution. They can be based on important reports: Larry Summers, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the G20 report by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweal, the Mario Monti report on the WHO European region and the recommendations of the WHO review led by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
First, our global health leaders need to have more authority to develop and improve health care.
Second, we need to build on the pioneering work of ACT-A and COVAX to ensure the proper manufacture and distribution of PPE, testing, treatments, and vaccines so that all countries can detect, respond to, treat, and protect current and future pandemics.
Third, we need a global table to prepare for the pandemic. But all of this will only work if we invent a sustainable funding mechanism to address the significant global disparities in health care supplies around the world. Too often, in times of global crisis — even in cases where we face life-and-death decisions — we limit ourselves to calling for “commitment” reminiscent of going through the begging boat or organizing a charity round. fundraising.
Ideally, pandemic preparedness should be funded through a burden-sharing formula, where costs are shared among the countries with the highest capacity to pay. Even now, less than 20 percent of the WHO budget is covered in this way. The eradication of smallpox in the 1960s and 1970s made history, mainly because the last impetus to eradicate the disease was through an agreement to share the burden as the richest countries shared the costs.
Considering the $ 1 trillion trade lost as a result of COVID-19, the $ 10 billion annual budget for pandemic prevention and preparedness, which the G20’s top independent panel deems necessary, would provide one of the highest returns on investment in history. But we need to act now – and next week’s World Health Assembly is the place to start – if we want to be prepared for all the events of the future.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
[ad_2]
Source link
