WHO predicts that the pandemic will last until 2022

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Covid epidemic would ‘carry on for a year longer than it needs to’ because poorer countries are not acquiring the vaccines they require.

As per Dr. Bruce Aylward, a top WHO official, the Covid issue might “easily go on long into 2022.” In Africa, only about 5% of the population has been vaccinated, compared to 40% on most other continents. More than 10 million immunizations have been supplied to countries in need by the United Kingdom.

The original concept behind Covax was that all countries, especially wealthy ones, would be able to obtain vaccines from its pool. However, after they began striking their own one-to-one arrangements with pharmaceutical companies, the majority of G7 countries decided to hold back.

The great majority of Covid vaccinations have been used in countries with high or upper middle incomes. Only 2.6 percent of global dosages are provided in Africa.

Canada and the UK were also chastised by the group of charities, which included Oxfam and UNAids, for obtaining vaccines for their own populations through Covax, the UN-backed global vaccine distribution programme.

According to official, the UK received 539,370 Pfizer doses earlier this year, while Canada received slightly under a million AstraZeneca doses.

Dr. Aylward urged wealthier countries to give up their spots in the vaccine line so that pharmaceutical companies might focus on the world’s poorest countries. He stated that wealthier countries should ‘take stock’ of their vows to donate made at events such as the G7 summit in St.Ives this summer.

The UK government noted that it was one of the countries that “kick-started” Covax with a £548 million donation last year. The Canadian government was quick to point out that it had stopped using Covax immunizations.

Covax had planned to deliver two billion vaccine doses by the end of the year, but it has only delivered 371 million so far.