INTERSOS supports the COVAX platform for vaccinations in Nigeria, Yemen and Burkina Faso. To vaccinate in low-income countries, a patent waiver and an increase in production are needed
After a year of global vaccination campaign against Covid-19, the disparities between Western countries and low-income countries are enormous and unacceptable, as well as risky for everyone as the virus continues to circulate and mutate. According to the United Nations Global Dashboard for Vaccination Equity, as of November 2021, only 6.48% of the target population in the world’s poorest countries were vaccinated with at least one dose compared to 64.99% of the target population in richer countries. In Afghanistan, so far, only 11% of the population has been fully vaccinated and 3% partially vaccinated (World Health Organization data).
According to WHO data, in most countries of the sub-Saharan area the percentage of the target population that completed the vaccination cycle in November 2021 is still too low: one of the highest percentages is the one of the Central African Republic with 6, 66% while in South Sudan, Chad, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo the percentage is less than 1%.
Even in Nigeria, where we work in support of the COVAX platform in the Borno State, despite the very important effort on the vaccination campaign made by the Ministry of Health, the data on vaccinations, although higher than the average of other African countries, still show some limits: at the moment about 3 and a half million people have been fully vaccinated out of 203 million inhabitants, of which the vaccination target (population over 18 years old) is about 103 million people.
The COVAX platform alone is not enough
INTERSOS supports COVAX in Southern Yemen as well with the direct administration of vaccines, management of the cold chain and vaccination awareness campaigns: here, unfortunately, in a year, less than 1 million doses have arrived. And a few days ago, after weeks of waiting, just 100,000 doses arrived. “The COVAX platform, born in 2021 with the aim of vaccinating 20% of the population in about one hundred low-income countries, is not enough“, Andrea Accardi, coordinator of the INTERSOS COVAX task force, explains. “But the dose-sharing system and voluntary licenses have also proved to be insufficient”.
“To vaccinate the populations of low-income countries and stop the advance and mutation of the virus – Accardi adds – it is absolutely necessary a patent waiver and an increase in production and diversification, that is the production of vaccines in several parts of the world and by several producers“. “Overall – Accardi explains – to achieve the necessary coverage the entire campaign chain must be aligned: increase in production (the suspension of patents is a fundamental accelerator in this sense), increase in capillarity and volume of distribution, scheduling of shipments of batches that do not have a short-term expiration (this allows to plan both the work of health staff on the field and awareness campaigns, which is a fundamental step in a vaccination campaign), investments in the cold chain and increase in capacity tracking”.