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Mirriam Madiye
Features Writer
The Director of World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called upon all countries to strengthen all their public health capacities to prepare for the possibility of vaccine evading variants.
Speaking at the Member State Information session on Covid-19 on May 13, Dr Adhanom Ghebreyesus highlighted that there is need to use every tool available to fight the Covid -19 pandemic.
“How quickly we end the pandemic, and how many sisters and brothers we lose along the way, depends on how quickly and how fairly we vaccinate a significant proportion of the global population, and how consistently we all follow proven public health measures,” he said.
He added that the relaxation of the public health and social measures has led to the increase of cases and deaths.
“Transmission is being driven by the spread of variants, increased social mixing, the too-quick relaxation of public health and social measures, and inequitable vaccination.
Vaccines are reducing severe disease and death in countries that are fortunate enough to have them in sufficient quantities, and early results suggest that vaccines might also drive down transmission,” said Dr Ghebreyesus.
According to WHO, high- and upper-middle income countries have received 83 percent of the world’s vaccines while, low- and lower-middle countries have received just 17percent of the world’s vaccines.
The director said that the inequitable global access to vaccines remains one of the biggest risks to ending the Covid -19 pandemic and the only solution to solve this imbalance is to correct it.
Online Reporter