Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg will be photographed during a “Fridays for Future” protest before the Swedish parliamentary Riksdagen in Stockholm on October 9, 2020.
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON – Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday pressured world leaders to do more to tackle inequality in vaccines against Covid-19. tragedy.”
Currently, an average of one in four people in high-income countries has received a Covid vaccine, compared to just one in more than 500 for people in low-income countries.
The trend comes despite repeated warnings from health experts that a slowdown in fair distribution of vaccines worldwide could facilitate the emergence of new strains of disease and extend the pandemic.
Thunberg will donate $ 100,000 ($ 120,000) through her foundation to the WHO Foundation in support of COVAX, an initiative that works for equitable access to Covid vaccines worldwide.
“The international community needs to do more to address the tragedy of vaccine inequality. We have the tools at our disposal to correct the great imbalance that exists around the world today in the fight against COVID-19,” Thunberg said in a statement.
“As with the climate crisis, we must first help those who are most vulnerable. That is why I support WHO, Gavi and everyone involved in the COVAX initiative, which I believe is the best way forward to ensure real vaccine availability and a way out from the pandemic, ”she added.
Thunberg said earlier this month that she would not attend COP26, a high-profile United Nations climate summit, this year if current vaccination trends continue.
‘Moral test’
“It is completely unethical for high-income countries to now vaccinate young and healthy people at the expense of those in risk groups and on the front lines in low- and middle-income countries,” Thunberg said during a virtual WHO briefing.
“This is a moral test, we are talking today about showing solidarity and yet vaccination nationalism is the basis for vaccine distribution,” she added.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, thanked Thunberg for advocating in support of vaccine health and for the donation to COVAX. He said that, at the age of 18, Thunberg was the youngest person to contribute to the initiative to date.
Greta Thunberg has inspired millions around the world to take action to address the climate crisis, and her strong support for vaccination ability to combat the COVID-19 pandemic further demonstrates her commitment to making our world a healthier, safer place. and fairer place for everyone, people, ”said Tedros.
“I urge the global community to follow Greta’s lead and do what they can, in support of COVAX, to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from this pandemic,” he added.
Tedros has previously said that one of the WHO’s main priorities is to increase COVAX’s ambition to help all countries end the pandemic.
COVAX was expected to deliver nearly 100 million vaccines to humans by the end of March, but so far it has distributed only 38 million doses.
Workers are standing by a plane that has delivered the first batch of the PfizerBioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) to Kiev International Airport, Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. (Photo credit should read Pavlo_Bagmut / Ukrinform / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Pavlo Bagmut | Ukrinform | Barcroft Media via Getty Images
The WHO has said it hopes the initiative will catch up in the coming months, but has condemned what it describes as a “shocking imbalance” in the distribution of vaccines between high- and low-income countries.
The health agency has also criticized countries for seeking their own vaccine deals for political or commercial reasons outside the COVAX initiative.
The international battle to secure a wide variety of Covid vaccines may make sense from an individual country’s perspective, but it has created wide inequalities in terms of global allocation.
For example, Canada has bought enough Covid vaccines to inoculate the entire population five times, according to data collected by researchers at Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center.
At a virtual G-7 summit in February, the group of major economies issued a statement committing to “intensify cooperation on the health response to Covid-19.
The G-7 also pledged support for “affordable and equitable access to vaccines, therapies and diagnostics, reflecting the role of comprehensive immunization as a global public good”.