The World Health Organization (WHO) chief on Monday denounced drug developers' profits and vaccine inequalities, indicating it is "not right" that younger and healthier individuals in wealthy nations get inoculated against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer nations. According to Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, most vaccine makers have targeted locations with the highest profits.
WHO Chief Against Vaccinating Young People First
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commenced WHO's week-long virtual executive board meeting on Monday by criticizing that merely 25 vaccine doses have been provided in a single poor country, whereas 39 million doses have been disseminated in almost 50 richer countries.
According to Tedros, "Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income country -- not 25 million, not 25,000 -- just 25." He added he needed to be blunt. He did not identify the country but a WHO spokesperson specified it as Guinea.
The WHO head stated wealthy countries securing millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines has put the world on the brink of a chaotic moral failure, reported Euronews.
Tedros stated to the WHO executive board that whereas over 39 million doses of novel coronavirus vaccine have been administered in "at least 49 higher-income countries," merely 25 doses have been provided in "one lowest-income country."
He remarked the equitable dissemination of coronavirus vaccines is at severe risk.
He underscored "the recent emergence of rapidly-spreading variants makes the rapid and equitable rollout of vaccines all the more important," reported CNBC.
The Ethiopian, who goes by his first name, nevertheless lauded the scientific achievement behind the distribution of vaccines less than a year following the pandemic's emergence in China, where a WHO-backed team has now been deployed to investigate the origins of COVID-19.
"Vaccines are the shot in the arm we all need, literally and figuratively," he said. "But we now face the real danger that even as vaccines bring hope to some, they become another brick in the wall of inequality between the worlds of the world's haves and have-nots," according to Tedros, reported Mint.
Tedros said it is right that all governments want to prioritize inoculating their own health workers and older people initially. However, he said it is wrong that younger, healthier adults in wealthy countries are immunized before health workers and older people in poorer countries and that there should be enough vaccine for all.
The WHO director-general noted the WHO-backed COVAX program, which is purported to disseminate vaccines out to all countries, rich or poor, based on need, has since then secured 2 billion vaccine doses from five producers and options on additional one billion doses.
He said they aim to begin deliveries in February and that COVAX is ready to deliver what it was developed for.
In some of his strongest public words yet pertaining to vaccine developers, Tedros again denounced "bilateral deals" between countries and drug companies that dent the ability of the WHO-backed COVAX program that aims to distribute vaccines to all countries based on need.
He said the majority of manufacturers had prioritized regulatory approval in wealthy countries with the highest profits instead of submitting data to the WHO so it could approve vaccines for wider use.
