GENEVA (Reuters) – The world can get the global COVID-19 pandemic under control in the coming months, provided the necessary resources are distributed fairly, the head of the World Health Organization said in a newsletter Monday.
Global climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who joined the briefing as a virtual guest from Sweden, swept out “vaccine nationalism” and said it was unethical for wealthy countries to prioritize their younger citizens for vaccination over vulnerable groups in developing countries.
“We have the tools to get this pandemic under control within months, if we apply them consistently and fairly,” said WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
However, he also expressed concern about the “alarming rate” at which COVID-19 is spreading worldwide among young people aged 25-59, possibly due to many more contagious variants.
“It took nine months to reach a million deaths, 4 months to reach 2 million and 3 months to reach 3 million.”
Thunberg said that while one in four people in high-income countries had now been vaccinated against COVID-19, only one in more than 500 people in poorer countries had received an injection.
“Vaccine nationalism is what controls vaccine distribution,” she said.
“The only morally right thing to do is to prioritize the people who are most vulnerable, whether they live in a high-income country or a low-income country.”
Environmental damage
Thunberg also directly linked the pandemic to environmental destruction, which she said made it much easier for dangerous viruses to jump from animal populations to humans.
“Science shows we will experience more devastating pandemics unless we drastically change our ways and the ways we treat nature … We create ideal conditions for diseases to spread from one animal to another and to us “, she said.
Thunberg urged young people everywhere to get vaccinated if given the opportunity, even though they are the age group least at risk from COVID-19, out of “solidarity with people in the (high) risk groups.”
A leading WHO epidemiologist, Maria van Kerkhove, told the same briefing that the latest increase in COVID-19 infections worldwide included an increase among age groups previously less affected by the pandemic.
“We are seeing increased transmission rates in all age groups,” she said, adding that about 5.2 million cases were reported last week, the highest weekly increase since the start of the pandemic.
“We are seeing a slight age shift in some countries, driven by social blending,” she added.
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