Build momentum to end Covid pandemic
‘Making progress toward closing these gaps is what today is all about. It’s time to build political momentum to finish the job on Covid-19.’
Daily Tribune‘Making progress toward closing these gaps is what today is all about. It’s time to build political momentum to finish the job on Covid-19.’
Residents in Kupang, Indonesia receive Covid-19 vaccines donated by the COVAX facility. | Photograph courtesy of UNICEF
Senior United Nations officials, including Secretary-General António Guterres, took part in a High-Level event at UN Headquarters in New York, noting the encouraging progress that has been made toward ending the Covid-19 pandemic, while acknowledging that work still needs to be done to ensure the most vulnerable are protected.
Guterres celebrated rising vaccination coverage worldwide, particularly among high-risk populations, and the fact that, on average, countries have vaccinated around three-quarters of health care workers and older people.
Covid-19 measures are increasingly integrated into routine health programs, and new antiviral drugs are about to become available.
Gaps remain
However, gaps in coverage and protection remain, Guterres said. There is minimal vaccine booster coverage in all countries, and there are low vaccination rates in poorer countries. He also warned of a "shadow pandemic" of vaccine hesitancy and misinformation that needs to be tackled.
The UN chief also called for testing rates to be drastically improved, and for countries to ensure they are fully prepared for future pandemics.
"Making progress toward closing these gaps is what today is all about," Guterres declared. "It's time to build political momentum to finish the job on Covid-19."
'Never been in better position to end Covid'
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of UN health agency WHO, has had to deliver many downbeat remarks since the beginning of the pandemic but, at the recent event, he was able to send a remarkably positive message.
With so many people vaccinated and reported deaths from the virus at the lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, the international community, he said, has "never been in a better position to end Covid-19 as a global health emergency."
However, Tedros echoed the concerns raised by Guterres, and referred to a report, issued by the WHO Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator Council, which revealed that most low- and middle-income countries have virtually no access to new antivirals.
While the Accelerator is making progress, providing almost 1.5 billion vaccine doses, and supporting 68 new countries to reach vaccination coverage of at least 40 percent, much more need to be done, Tedros said: "We're not there yet, but the end is in sight."
Routine jabs plummet
Routine vaccinations for other diseases have been significantly disrupted. Russell pointed to data from WHO and UNICEF which show that 25 million children did not receive the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis — a marker for immunization coverage in general — in 2021.
"This is the largest, sustained drop in the rates of routine childhood vaccinations in a generation," she warned, "potentially wiping out 30 years of progress if we don't get back on track."
