Five million lives worldwide have already been lost to COVID-19, and the World Health Organization Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (WHO / ACT-A) is tragically lost. not to mention Five million people will die from the disease in the coming months. Ironically, COVID-19 cases increase from 260 million confirmed to 460 million by the end of 2022.
The damage from COVID-19 has been so severe that, when International Health Conference (WHA) meets in a special session, beginning November 29, to do more than prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy. The depletion of COVID-19 is so destructive that we now need a global consensus to prevent future epidemics from further epidemics.
In the words of the WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the new agreement must be accompanied by a strong commitment to health for all based on justice and international cooperation. Not all people should have access to the basic necessities of life, regardless of their economic or financial status, but the international community must ensure that medical care is used properly and efficiently. To achieve this, we need a well-functioning global monitoring system, prompt implementation and sharing of emergency and economic assistance.
Nothing illustrates the importance of this more clearly than our failure, as a global team, to live up to our promise to prevent the proper distribution of vaccines. So far, thanks to smart science and innovation, we will have developed a 12 billion vaccine by Christmas – enough for every major vaccine in the world – 95 percent of adults remain unprotected in low-income countries. This is one of the greatest failures of human society in our time.
The WHO global vaccination target for adults in each country – 40 percent by December – is expected to miss 82 countries. Instead, since the June G7 summit, when leaders pledged to vaccinate the world by 2022, the gap between vaccines and those without vaccines has grown rather than decreased.
In high-income countries, vaccines have risen from 40 percent in June to 60-70 percent now, but are moving faster in poorer countries – from 1 percent to 5 percent. Indeed, six seniors are receiving their inspiring shot in middle-income and high-income countries for every adult who is now being treated daily in a low-income country and 90 percent of Africa’s health workers remain unprotected.
Despite regional requirements such as the African Union AVAT vaccination center, it has taken action to address the illegal gap by purchasing a 400 million Johnson & Johnson vaccine and another 110 million vaccines from Moderna – 50 million coming between December and March -. is still not enough to meet the needs of the continent’s 1.3 billion people.
This discrepancy is clearly stated: 89 percent of all vaccines were purchased by the G20, the richest countries in the world, and today control 71 percent of future births. Promises from Global North to Vaccine Gift Vaccine to Global South have failed: only 22 percent of the pledges made by the United States and those sent. Europe, UK and Canada have done the worst and sent 15, 10 and 5 percent respectively.
COVAX, the global vaccine distribution agency, which expected to send two billion vaccines by December, now expects to deliver two-thirds of that number. This is a growing vaccine in the richest countries in which the health research team, Airfinity, estimates that by the end of 2021, the unspecified 100 million dose in the G20 will exceed the “consumer” days of exposure.
For G20 countries, having a life-saving vaccine and rejecting it in the poorest countries is illegal. Allowing many levels to be destroyed by the destruction of medicine is a human condition that will never be forgotten or forgiven. An urgent, continuous, monthly delivery system and airline vaccine, linked to the G20, is now needed to implement where the vaccine is most needed.
But vaccine inequality shows why significant changes are needed in global decision-making. Of course, few international organizations are gifted with the freedom to make their own decisions. The opinion found in the Court of Appeals of the World Trade Organization and the International Criminal Court, whose rulings are final, is an area in which the international community can control countries and as a result, is being attacked by a coalition of anti-internationalists.
While there is a global health consortium that focuses on reducing the need for tobacco, as well as the 2011 agreement to ensure that WHO can order the introduction of flu vaccines when needed, a global agreement has been called in to help health officials around the world do just that. much of the prevention, awareness, preparation and management of the epidemic still eludes us.
The special session of the World Health Assembly provides us with a unique opportunity to address these issues in a practical way that will facilitate the immediate establishment of an international legal framework under the auspices of the WHO Constitution. They can build on key reports – Larry Summers’ G20 report, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Mario Monti report to the European WHO region and, the WHO commentary led by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
First, our health leaders around the world must have more power to create and promote health guidelines.
Second, we must promote ACT-A and COVAX pioneering initiatives to ensure the effective production and distribution of PPE, testing, treatment and vaccination so that all countries can identify, respond to, treat and prevent current and future epidemics.
Third, we need a global epidemic. But all of this will work only if we develop a sustainable approach to funding to address global health inequalities around the world. Often, in times of global crisis – even those we face in life and death elections – we are reduced to passing a plate of petition or convening “sworn” meetings in a way that also reminds us of making a whip on the charity. fundraising.
Ideally, epidemic planning should be facilitated by a weight-sharing system where funds are shared between countries that have the opportunity to pay. Even now, less than 20 percent of the WHO budget is spent this way. The eradication of smallpox in the 1960s and 1970s made a good impression because the last push to eradicate the disease began with a pact agreement to share the burden of the wealthiest nations.
Considering the billions of dollars lost in COVID-19, $ 10bn a year of disease prevention and planning, which seems to be needed by the independent G20 group, could provide one of the best revenues in history. But we must do something now – and next week the World Health Assembly is the place to start – if we want to be ready for everything that happens in the future.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Al Jazeera.
