Dangerous divergence in Covid survival rates: Top world bodies

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 29

Heads of four top global agencies — International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation, World Health Organisation and World Bank Group — today said the crisis of vaccine inequity was driving a dangerous divergence in Covid survival rates and in the global economy. They called upon nations to fulfill their pledges toward augmentation of global vaccine supply chains and help inoculate the vulnerable population.

After the third meeting of the Multilateral Leaders Taskforce on Covid (MLT), heads of the four groups said the global rollout of Covid vaccines was progressing at two alarmingly different speeds.

“Less than 2% of adults are fully vaccinated in most low-income countries compared to almost 50% in high-income countries. These countries, the majority of which are in Africa, simply cannot access sufficient vaccine to meet even the global goals of 10% coverage in all countries by September and 40% by 2021 end, let alone the African Union’s goal of 70% in 2022,” the taskforce said, calling for rapid scale-up of vaccines in low and lower middle-income countries, particularly in Africa.

In a statement, the leaders said barely 10% of the nearly 900 million committed doses had so far been shipped to the global vaccine facility Covax.