Here are how many anti Covid vaccines are wasted and thrown away in the world. Map
60% of the vaccines produced are purchased by a small group of countries that do not even use them all, while the great poor countries of the global South have received only 3%. All the details
"We expected this and we warned that without a vaccination spread all over the world, more contagious and dangerous viral variants would emerge", Walter Ricciardi , scientific advisor to the Minister of Health, wrote last Sunday in Avvenire .
Now the Omicron variant has reminded us once again that vaccination inequality puts the whole world at risk, but in the meantime the blind race of rich countries continues.
HOW IS VACCINATION WORLDWIDE
In fact, access to anti Covid vaccines remains highly unequal. Every day, Quartz says, 27 million doses are administered and about half of the world has received at least one dose, but most of it goes to citizens of high or middle-high income countries.
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), as of November 23, 64% of people in high-income countries had received at least one dose of the vaccine against less than 8% of people in low-income countries.
WHICH ARE THE COUNTRIES WITH THE MOST VACCINES?
"Rich countries should stop stockpiling vaccines," writes Quartz , who provides the numbers of the gap between luckier and lesser nations.
According to estimates by London-based analyst firm Airfinity, reported by NPR , 60% of the vaccines produced in the world are sourced from a small group of countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada and Japan. But that's not all.
Of this 60%, one-third to one-half is accumulated rather than used.
HOW MANY DOSES DO WESTERN COUNTRIES WASTE?
According to the former British Prime Minister and WHO Ambassador Gordon Brown, there are approximately 100 million doses of the anti Covid vaccine accumulated by Western countries that could be wasted within a few weeks.
Brown particularly beaten his country which has so far delivered only 11% of the vaccines promised to the Covax program. "If you waste a vaccine, you are actually putting your life at risk," he said.
FRANCE
In France, Health Minister Olivier Veran said in April that 25% of AstraZeneca's vaccines, 20% of Moderna and 7% of Pfizer had gone to waste. The country, explains LCI , had received about 5 million doses of AstraZeneca at that time, which means that about 1.25 million doses were thrown away.
UNITED STATES
According to government data obtained by NBC News and reported in September, pharmacies and federal governments in the United States have thrown away at least 15.1 million doses since March 1 – a much larger number than previously known and perhaps still underestimated. .
CANADA
Even Canada, according to a survey cited by Global News , since last December when the first doses arrived, has wasted at least a million because they have expired or for other reasons.
Adam Houston, who works for Doctors Without Borders, said Canada's waste of vaccines is "worrying" as 47 percent of the world's population eligible for vaccination – most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa – has yet to receive the first dose.
FORGOTTEN AFRICA …
Brown also recalled that only 7% of the African population had been vaccinated and before the discovery of Omicron, he had already warned that failure to vaccinate the continent would return to "haunt" the West.
"Give the vaccines to Africa, or the world will not be saved from Covid". This is the alarm launched by Githinji Gitahi , director of Amref Health Africa and head of the new African Commission for response to Covid. “There is no point in banning flights from South Africa, as you are doing. There is no need to bar doors and windows, because the virus will find its way anyway. The most effective strategy – as well as the most ethical – is to make sure everyone is vaccinated ”.
…AND NOT ONLY
But, as Ricciardi recalls, "it is not only Africa, it is the great poor countries of the southern hemisphere which, despite having the majority of the world population, have had, to date, only 3% of the vaccine doses".
"Until when we continue not to understand that if we do not vaccinate everyone and in all countries of the world, we will continue for years to have an alternation of pandemic waves that will inevitably break up our societies, increasing socio-economic instability and inequalities?".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/ecco-quanti-vaccini-anti-covid-sono-sprecati-e-buttati-nel-mondo-mappa/ on Tue, 30 Nov 2021 11:10:06 +0000.