'Poor countries deprived of COVAX supply' | Economic Times

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern over the unavailability of Covid-19 vaccines through the COVAX programme, people in the know told ET. In a meeting held on Friday, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke about the lack of “political will” for sharing vaccines with low- and middle-income countries. COVAX was launched in April 2020 to distribute Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries. The Independent Allocation of Vaccine Group of COVAX held its meeting on Friday to discuss vaccine allocation. “The DG has expressed concerns over the inequitable supply of vaccines,” NK Arora, co-chair of COVAX facility, told ET. “Where is humanity when everyone is boasting about their vaccination numbers there is no thought given to the supplies to the poor and middle-income countries,” Arora quoted Tedros as saying. Under the COVAX programme, richer countries are to subsidise the cost of vaccines for poorer nations. The programme aims to distribute enough vaccines to protect at least 20% of the population in 92 low-or medium-income countries. Its initial goal was to provide 2 billion doses of vaccines worldwide in 2021, and 1.8 billion doses to 92 poorer countries by early 2022. However, according to Arora, “As of now, 89 million doses have been distributed through COVAX”. India’s Serum Institute of India (SII) continued to supply to COVAX and suspended all major exports only when infections surged in India in March. In May, CEO Adar Poonawalla said that SII will continue to scale up vaccine manufacturing and “prioritise India” that was experiencing a deadly surge in Covid-19 infections. SII, aid that it hoped to restart delivering vaccine doses to COVAX by the end of 2021.