Rabat – The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on February 14 that 116 countries are far from reaching WHO’s goal of vaccinating 70% of their population by mid-2022.
This isn’t the first time the WHO raises concerns over the low vaccination rates. In the past weeks and days, the global health body has repeatedly warned that the acute shortage of vaccine doses and the low testing rates in many countries could lead to the emergence of new variants.
Speaking at the COVID-19 Global Action meeting, Ghebreyesus noted, “We can bring the pandemic under control this year – but we are at increased risk of squandering that opportunity.”
As many countries failed to achieve the UN goal to vaccinate 40% of their populations by the end of 2021, the global health institute set a new target for countries with an aim to vaccinate 70% of their populations by mid-2022.
The situation in some countries with high vaccine coverage and lower severity of Omicron “is driving a false narrative that the pandemic is over,” the WHO director general added.
Initially, COVAX, the WHO’s global vaccine-sharing program, aimed at delivering 2 billion doses by the end of last year, but the emergence of new outbreaks that led to borders and supply being locked interrupted the shipping process to several countries.
The WHO chief stressed, “Through the ACT Accelerator and the COVAX pillar and our partnership with UNICEF, we are now overcoming some of the supply and delivery constraints we faced last year, with more than 1 billion vaccine doses shipped.”
While emphasizing the urgency of supporting political leaders to accelerate the rollout of vaccines, Ghebreyesus lauded the engagement of countries to fight against the COVID and its variants.
He also called on governments to contribute their fair share to fully “fund the ACT Accelerator, especially for the immediate need of $16 billion (MAD 150 billion).”
The director general also urged the public and private sectors to work together to keep the pandemic under control and drive an inclusive and sustainable recovery.
“Fostering local vaccine manufacturing capacity throughout the globe … will help bring this pandemic to an end and keep us all safer,” he concluded.
While most African countries have been unable to meet the UN’s vaccination target, Morocco is among the leading African countries that vaccinated 40% of their citizens by the end of 2021, alongside Cape Verde, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Tunisia.
In Africa, over 80% of people have yet to receive the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
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