World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Monday that the world is “on the brink of catastrophic moral failure” because of the unequal distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Why it matters: Tedros noted in a management session that 39 million vaccine doses had been administered in 49 higher-income countries, while a country with the lowest income had “only 25 doses.”
- This “me-first” approach will ultimately “prolong the pandemic, the constraints needed to contain it, and human and economic suffering,” he added.
Of interest: The WHO itself was criticized in an interim report on Monday for being slow to respond to the outbreak after it was first discovered in China in late 2019, which was also spotted early for shortcomings.
- “The global pandemic warning system is not fit for purpose,” said the preliminary report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, an independent panel commissioned by WHO.
- “The WHO has had too little power to do the job.”
What they say: China’s public health measures “could have been more vigorously applied by local and state health authorities,” said the report’s expert panel, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
- The experts noted that it was unclear why the WHO did not meet until the third week of January 2020, nor why it could not agree to declare a public health emergency of international concern until a week later.
What to watch: A team of World Health Organization researchers is in Wuhan, China, to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
- Tedros said his focus is on the rollout of the global COVAX vaccination schedule, which starts next month. More than 180 countries have joined the WHO-led program.
- He hopes that on World Health Day on April 7, COVID-19 vaccines “will be delivered in every country, as a symbol of hope for overcoming both the pandemic and the inequalities that are at the root of so many global health challenges.”