In October 2021, the Joint Allocation Taskforce of COVAX, the world’s primary distributor of COVID-19 vaccines, issued its global COVID-19 vaccination strategy. COVAX, a cooperative effort of the vaccine alliance GAVI and the World Health Organization, issued a set of recommendations to make the allocation of COVID-19 vaccines more equitable and effective. COVAX seconded the World Health Organization's goal of vaccinating 70 percent of people in every country across every income level by mid-2022. COVAX called the effort a global imperative. That’s because clearly, when it comes to COVID-19, if one community is at risk then we all are at risk.
“Millions of people are getting vaccinated each day,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. However, “Recent analysis found that while nearly 80 percent of people are vaccinated in upper, middle, and high-income countries, the number falls to less than 11 percent in low-income countries.”
[ACT 1: 0:19 DALET/POLICY/ACTUALITIES:]“Last month, the World Health Organization warned that nearly 90 countries from around the world are not on track to reach the 70 percent goal. That means billions of people remain vulnerable to COVID, and the world remains vulnerable to new variants, which may be even more lethal and transmissible than the ones we’ve experienced so far.”[END ACT]
On February 14, Secretary Blinken launched the Global Action Plan, which includes six steps identified by the international community to address the most acute needs to end the pandemic cycle. The Global Action Plan “will help us achieve the goals laid out by President Biden at the global COVID 19 summit last year,” said Secretary Blinken.
[ACT 2: 0:31 DALET/POLICY/ACTUALITIES:]“For our part, the United States will continue to provide vaccine doses around the world through COVAX. To date, we’ve delivered over 435 million safe, effective vaccines free of charge with no political strings attached as part of our overall commitment to donate 1.2 billion doses by the end of the year. This includes our latest donation of 5 million Johnson & Johnson doses to the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust, the innovative effort by the African Union to help smaller countries negotiate as a group for vaccine purchases.”[END ACT]
“We need to take all efforts and contributions that our countries are already making,” said Secretary Blinken, “and intensify them and better coordinate them so that we can achieve our targets and end the acute phase of COVID-19 this year.”
Anncr: That was an editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government.
More Equitable Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution
COVAX, a cooperative effort of the vaccine alliance GAVI and the World Health Organization, issued a set of recommendations to make the allocation of COVID-19 vaccines more equitable and effective.
