World Health Organisation warning that world’s poorest must not be ‘trampled’ in Covid vaccine race

The WHO has warned that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable must not be “trampled in the stampede” for Covid-19 vaccines.

Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said vaccines must be distributed equitably and that £3.2bn was needed to help fund a sharing scheme. He said the question was “not whether the world can afford to share, it’s whether it can afford not to”.

Speaking earlier this week, Dr Tedros said the promising results from recent vaccine trials meant that “the light at the end of this long dark tunnel is growing brighter.

“The significance of this scientific achievement cannot be overstated,” he said, adding “No vaccines in history have been developed as rapidly as these.”

He added that although he understood that “every government rightly wants to do everything it can to protect its people”, he did have concerns that wealthier nations would buy up available stocks of vaccines, leaving poorer countries empty handed.

He urged more countries to join a landmark global vaccine sharing scheme that the WHO helped to create, known as Covax, which 187 countries had already signed up to. The scheme is aiming to deliver two billion vaccines doses around the world by the end of 2021, but it is struggling to raise the funds needed to distribute supplies to over 90 low-income countries and other economies that have signed up.

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Posted by Karen Motley, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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