Individual vaccine arrangements undermine fair distribution, WHO head says

[webfact]

Individual vaccine arrangements undermine fair distribution, WHO head says

 

FILE PHOTO: World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference organized by Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva Switzerland July 3, 2020. Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via REUTERS

 

ZURICH (Reuters) - The World Health Organization on Thursday urged nations producing COVID-19 vaccines not to distribute them unilaterally but to donate them to the global COVAX scheme to ensure fairness.

 

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the plea as China hashes out agreements across Africa, Russia distributes shots in Latin America and the European Union eyes giving vaccines to poorer countries, all outside of the COVAX facility.

 

Tedros said nations striking one-on-one deals undermine COVAX's goal of equitable access, adding the WHO's scheme can even accommodate requests from governments that "prefer to give their donations to certain countries, because they are their neighbours or because they have some relationship".

 

"What we can do, if that comes through COVAX, is the earmarked donation can go to those countries and the COVAX stocks can go to other countries," Tedros said during a virtual press conference from Geneva.

 

"So we can strike a balance."

 

COVAX, also backed by Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, is due to ship small volumes of vaccines from AstraZeneca and Pfizer, even as wealthier countries have snapped up most Western doses.

 

Meanwhile, vaccine diplomacy is ascendant, with Russia talking with Croatia over deliveries while the first shipments of its Sputnik V shots are bound for Mexico.

 

In recent weeks, China has also offered hundreds of thousands of doses to Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea.

 

The European Union is working on its own vaccine-sharing mechanism, potentially undercutting the WHO's push.

 

WHO adviser Bruce Aylward said wealthier EU countries and Canada had approached COVAX about sharing doses, though so far without result.

 

"There was a lot of interest," Aylward, also speaking at Thursday's press conference, said.

 

"Unfortunately, we have not seen yet the translation of that interest ... to (vaccination donations) to COVAX."

 

(Reporting by John Miller in Zurich, Josephine Mason and Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-02-19

 

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[YetAnother]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

to ensure fairness

some more fair than others

[PatOngo]

Things could have been rolling earlier if you had'nt sided with the Chinese to cover up the pandemic in the early stages, Sir!

[bluesofa]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Individual vaccine arrangements undermine fair distribution, WHO head says

I'd gather from that statement by China's lacky, that China aren't selling as much as they had hoped.

[Scott]

Troll post removed. 

 

[John Drake]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

"prefer to give their donations to certain countries, because they are their neighbours or because they have some relationship".

 

Why on earth shouldn't they? Wouldn't it be in the US' interests, for example, to make sure Canada and Mexico received Covid shots in order to enlarge the vaccinated area? And why, OTOH, send extra vaccine, say, to some remote SE Asian country that has few border or immigration reactions with the US, and which, coincidentally, feels better chumming up to China for its vaccines, trade, and military connections anyway?

Edited February 19, 2021 by John Drake

[rupert the bear]

nonsense,we see the countries that are most effected are USA UK EU and latam.theyve come up with solutions IE vaccs that work so they will deal with their people first,it costs money intellect and imagination at a medical level to produce these vaccs in such a short time.when these areas are vacced the whole worlds economy will start again.why give it to areas that cant organise themselves well and most importantly are barely effected.their citizens will benefit by their econos having an export mkt..later vaccs will arrive when theres enough and then theres the cause of it all,CHINA. silent about that arnt you.i wonder why.time they picked up the bill and we as a planet turned our back on this loathsome fascist regime.

[Megasin1]

and so despite the west giving them money including 4 billion from the US of A, direct to Covax they have so far vaccinated not a single person. Well done WHO, big up to you !!! I know let's just whinge and moan, whinge and moan....

[Emdog]

Supply is limited. Demand is huge. What sane politician is going to reduce vaccinations that taxpayers paid for in home county in order  to give to neighbors? A sure way to get removed from office, I'd think. "Charity begins at home" or "Ya dance with the one whut brung ya"

[Eric Loh]

26 minutes ago, Megasin1 said:

and so despite the west giving them money including 4 billion from the US of A, direct to Covax they have so far vaccinated not a single person. Well done WHO, big up to you !!! I know let's just whinge and moan, whinge and moan....

What has it done so far? 

The WHO has already been able to make significant progress on leading the global response to the virus, and ensuring that governments, frontline workers, and patients have what they need.

According to the latest figures shared with Global Citizen this week, the WHO has shipped personal protective equipment (PPE) to 75 countries including over 800,000 surgical masks; 54,000 N95 face masks; 873,000 gloves; 85,000 gowns; 15,000 goggles; and 24,000 face shields. 

It has also sent 1.5 million diagnostic kits to 126 countries, increasing their capacity – including countries in Africa, the Eastern Mediterrenean region, and the Americas.

The Solidarity Response Fund is also helping to improve access to information globally, both for the public and for responders. The WHO has developed six multilingual online courses and one simulation exercise that has reached 176,000 responders to help build the global capacity to tackle the virus. By March 19, over 323,000 people had enrolled in the WHO's COVID-19 online courses.   

 

Note: Vaccination is done by individual countries. 

[Megasin1]

47 minutes ago, Eric Loh said:

What has it done so far? 

The WHO has already been able to make significant progress on leading the global response to the virus, and ensuring that governments, frontline workers, and patients have what they need.

According to the latest figures shared with Global Citizen this week, the WHO has shipped personal protective equipment (PPE) to 75 countries including over 800,000 surgical masks; 54,000 N95 face masks; 873,000 gloves; 85,000 gowns; 15,000 goggles; and 24,000 face shields. 

It has also sent 1.5 million diagnostic kits to 126 countries, increasing their capacity – including countries in Africa, the Eastern Mediterrenean region, and the Americas.

The Solidarity Response Fund is also helping to improve access to information globally, both for the public and for responders. The WHO has developed six multilingual online courses and one simulation exercise that has reached 176,000 responders to help build the global capacity to tackle the virus. By March 19, over 323,000 people had enrolled in the WHO's COVID-19 online courses.   

 

Note: Vaccination is done by individual countries. 

Go and look a little more at these figures and how quickly front line workers burn through PPE and masks etc. and think again.. An online course is not a proactive pandemic response, vaccinating people is. The WHO has more funding available to it than most moderately sized countries, so had they known what they were doing they would have pre-ordered vaccines ages ago. Its nothing more than an ineffective gravy train that isn't even capable of tracking down the source of the virus. Countries should withdraw their funding immediately, it could be better spent ????

[natway09]

The Governments do not produce the vaccine. Private BIG Pharma companies do & they have always been greedy, this virus just presents an opportunity for them to make $$$$$$,

If anybody believes in the " white knight theory" you are unfortunately living on the wrong planet

 

[Eric Loh]

16 minutes ago, Megasin1 said:

Go and look a little more at these figures and how quickly front line workers burn through PPE and masks etc. and think again.. An online course is not a proactive pandemic response, vaccinating people is. The WHO has more funding available to it than most moderately sized countries, so had they known what they were doing they would have pre-ordered vaccines ages ago. Its nothing more than an ineffective gravy train that isn't even capable of tracking down the source of the virus. Countries should withdraw their funding immediately, it could be better spent ????

You just don't seem to understand the roles of WHO. The organisation collaborate with scientists and policy makers on a global scale to develop approaches to manufacture, testing and regulatory oversight of vaccine. They don't have the mandate to buy vaccines for vaccination. Some of this task is done by international organisation such as UN backed GAVI who is a international vaccine distributor alliance to distribute vaccines to poor countres. You are barking up a wrong tree.

 

[placnx]

3 hours ago, natway09 said:

The Governments do not produce the vaccine. Private BIG Pharma companies do & they have always been greedy, this virus just presents an opportunity for them to make $$$$$$,

If anybody believes in the " white knight theory" you are unfortunately living on the wrong planet

 

This COVAX is not really a solution. The US and some other willing Western countries should greatly increase vaccine production capacity so that in the future their own populations can be supplied in the space of around two months with vaccine for the next variant or even a new virus. When they are not dealing with an emergency, they would dedicate this production capacity to vaccinating the rest of the world. (Depending on the type of vaccine, the same equipment might be used for making other medicines in quiet times).

 

Obviously, private drug companies cannot be expected to invest in such production capacity since a lot of the vaccine would be low or no profit. So governments should take responsibility for this. One solution is that government would pay expenses plus for the drug companies to produce this vaccine. The government could also rent its facilities in quiet times to drug companies to scale up production of other medicines, many of which are currently too expensive for mass consumption.

 

This might affect some Indian drug companies which could find some of their production outmoded.  

[placnx]

3 hours ago, Eric Loh said:

You just don't seem to understand the roles of WHO. The organisation collaborate with scientists and policy makers on a global scale to develop approaches to manufacture, testing and regulatory oversight of vaccine. They don't have the mandate to buy vaccines for vaccination. Some of this task is done by international organisation such as UN backed GAVI who is a international vaccine distributor alliance to distribute vaccines to poor countres. You are barking up a wrong tree.

 

GAVI has tried not to step on WHO's toes, and maybe WHO should let GAVI deal with vaccine distribution. WHO is turning this into an inflammatory political football.

[bangon04]

It makes perfect sense - taxpayers from first-world countries should always expect to subsidise the corrupt and incompetent governments in third world countries so that these governments can continue to spend their own money on swiss bank accounts and armaments in order to slaughter ethnic minorities, tribal enemies, religious opponents and various political opponents as is their inalienable right to do so.

[impulse]

8 hours ago, Eric Loh said:

According to the latest figures shared with Global Citizen this week, the WHO has shipped personal protective equipment (PPE) to 75 countries including over 800,000 surgical masks; 54,000 N95 face masks; 873,000 gloves; 85,000 gowns; 15,000 goggles; and 24,000 face shields. 

It has also sent 1.5 million diagnostic kits to 126 countries, increasing their capacity – including countries in Africa, the Eastern Mediterrenean region, and the Americas.

 

Look at those numbers, look at the WHO budget and then look at the world's population.    1.5 million diagnostic kits into countries with billions of people...  Wow.

 

The WHO has basically drunk up Dom Perignon,  tinkled into the ocean, and called it their contribution to water quality. 

 

But they have kept some of the heat off of China.  So, money well spent.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by impulse

[candide]

8 hours ago, Megasin1 said:

Go and look a little more at these figures and how quickly front line workers burn through PPE and masks etc. and think again.. An online course is not a proactive pandemic response, vaccinating people is. The WHO has more funding available to it than most moderately sized countries, so had they known what they were doing they would have pre-ordered vaccines ages ago. Its nothing more than an ineffective gravy train that isn't even capable of tracking down the source of the virus. Countries should withdraw their funding immediately, it could be better spent ????

Funds have been pledged only in November and December 2020. Trump refused to participate, so the involvement of the US only started after Biden became president. And "pledged" doesn't mean they have actually received the money!

 

Under such circumstances, please explain how they could have "pre-ordered vaccines ages ago".

[Kelsall]

 

[placnx]

10 hours ago, bangon04 said:

It makes perfect sense - taxpayers from first-world countries should always expect to subsidise the corrupt and incompetent governments in third world countries so that these governments can continue to spend their own money on swiss bank accounts and armaments in order to slaughter ethnic minorities, tribal enemies, religious opponents and various political opponents as is their inalienable right to do so.

Life is complicated. If Western countries engage with the people in these countries rather than just their dictators, there is hope that we can raise the standard for public health. Ensuring that stateless people in South Asia get vaccinated in spite of their official invisibility will help ensure that new variants do not come back to haunt us. 

[Chomper Higgot]

12 hours ago, bangon04 said:

It makes perfect sense - taxpayers from first-world countries should always expect to subsidise the corrupt and incompetent governments in third world countries so that these governments can continue to spend their own money on swiss bank accounts and armaments in order to slaughter ethnic minorities, tribal enemies, religious opponents and various political opponents as is their inalienable right to do so.

There’s a reason that ‘makes perfect sense’ to you.