Europe and pharma groups must worktogether to speed up Covid-19 vaccinations, the head of the European branchof the World Health Organization said Friday, expressing concern about theeffectiveness of vaccines on virus variants, reports AFP.
“We need to join up to speed up vaccinations,” WHO Europe director HansKluge told AFP in an interview, as Europe bids to overcome a slow start toits vaccination campaign amid tensions between Brussels and vaccinemanufacturers.
“Otherwise competing pharmaceutical companies (must) join efforts todrastically increase production capacity … that’s what we need,” Kluge said.
In the European Union, just 2.5 percent of the population has received afirst vaccine dose, though announcements by several laboratories of increasedvaccine deliveries have raised hopes of an acceleration.
Asked whether the vaccines available since December would be effectiveagainst new virus variants, Kluge replied “That’s the big question. I’mconcerned.”
“We have to be prepared” for new problematic mutations of the virus, hewarned, calling on countries to expand their genomic sequencing capacity.
“It’s a cruel reminder that the virus still has the upper hand on the humanbeing.”
Of the 53 countries in the WHO’s European region — which includes severalcountries in central Asia — 37 have reported cases of the British variantand 17 have registered cases of the South African variant.
While the fight against the pandemic now appears more challenging than inDecember when the first vaccines became available, Kluge remained optimistic.
“I’ll be honest, I think that the tunnel is a little bit longer than what Ithought at the end of December, but it’s going to be manageable, more preventable this year.”
“‘The’ solution or ‘the’ strategy doesn’t exist. We have to get better atwhat we do and we are getting better,” he said.
He reiterated the WHO’s call for rich countries to show solidarity towardpoor nations unable to buy vaccines, urging wealthy ones to share their dosesafter having inoculated a portion of their own population.
“Maybe if EU countries vaccinate 20 percent of their population — — andyou need 70 percent for herd immunity — but we could say for example that ifthey hit 20 percent would mean elderly people, health care workers, peoplewith comorbidity — if they hit 20 percent maybe that’s the moment that theycan already start to share some vaccines,” he suggested.
The milestone of 100 million vaccine doses administered was passed onTuesday, with 65 percent of jabs given in high-income countries, according toWorld Bank criteria.
In a bid to combat “vaccine nationalism”, the WHO has set up Covax, aglobal inoculation-sharing initiative to help poor countries.
“We know that in the EU, Canada, UK, US, they all ordered and made dealsfor four to nine times more doses than they need. So my point here is, don’t wait until you have 70 percent of the population (vaccinated) to share withthe Balkans, to share with central Asia, Africa.”
While the WHO is in favour of countries issuing vaccination certificates,Kluge was opposed to the idea of “vaccination passports” required for travel.
“We certainly don’t want to have a situation where there are so-calledvaccine passports, that’s something that we are definitely not subscribing tobecause it will increase inequities.”
