British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has expressed hope that the G-7 countries will agree to give about 100 million doses of the corona vaccine to the poor countries of the world so that they can intensify their vaccination campaign.
Prior to his statement, US President Joe Biden had said that America would alone give about 500 million doses of vaccine to poor countries to fight the corona epidemic.
Biden said that to defeat this epidemic, it is necessary that the strongest and richest democratic countries of the world come forward.
The G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, apart from the US and the UK.
Before the G-7 summit starting on Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “The G-7 should resolve that they will try to give the vaccine to the entire population of the world by the end of the year 2022.” He said that “we want to defeat this epidemic together with our friendly countries. We are committed to it. In the next few weeks, Britain will give about 5 million doses to poor countries. I would ask all countries to cooperate in this.”
Before Johnson, on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron also welcomed the US announcement. He had said that Europe should also do something about it. Macron announced that “France will be in a position to donate at least 30 million vaccine doses by the end of this year.”
‘This help is like a drop of water in the ocean’
US President Joe Biden predicts that the global vaccine campaign will be ‘supercharged’ after America has given so many vaccines and with such support from the G-7. Biden said, “We’re not doing this on any condition. We’re just trying to save lives.”
However, some social organizations have described this help as ‘like a drop of water in the ocean’.
They say that according to Oxfam, about 400 million people in the world depend on a scheme like ‘Kovax’.
Kovax – is an international scheme led by the World Health Organization, under which the corona vaccine is being given to low and middle income countries. It has been told that out of the 100 crore doses that Britain has promised to give, about 800 million doses will be distributed through the Kovax program.
According to the news agency Reuters, about 39 lakh people have died in the world so far due to the corona epidemic. This pandemic has shaken the economies of many countries of the world. Corona infection has been recorded in more than 210 countries since it first emerged in China in December 2019.
Scientists are of the opinion that if vaccination campaigns around the world are not intensified simultaneously, there will be a risk of mutating into a new and dangerous variant of the virus, which may be difficult to prevent with existing vaccines.
What did America promise?
The US administration has said that they are going to buy millions of doses of Pfizer vaccine without any profit and send them to at least 100 poor countries.
These vaccines will start going in August 2021. The US has claimed that it will be able to donate about 200 million doses by the end of this year and the remaining 300 million doses by June 2022 next year.
Certainly this amount of donating the corona vaccine is much bigger than the announcement made by any other country in the world.
However, countries like Belgium, Denmark and Japan have also helped to strengthen the corona vaccination campaign globally.
It is expected that in the next few days, during the G-7 summit, some more countries can also make such an announcement.
Is this donation enough?
Corona epidemic – is a big challenge and to overcome it, there is an urgent need of vaccine all over the world.
The World Health Organization has set a target that by September 2021 in all countries, at least 10 percent of the population should be given the vaccine, for which we need an additional 250 million doses.
According to the World Health Organization, ‘vaccine sharing’ is the only way to overcome the deadliest phase of the epidemic.
Initially, the goal of the Covax program was to share at least 200 million vaccine doses worldwide by the end of this year. But this has now been reduced to 180 million doses, which are to be distributed to more than 90 countries by the beginning of 2022.
According to the World Health Organization, to prevent the spread of corona infection, 70% of the world’s population needs to be given the vaccine, for which at least 1100 million doses will have to be collected.
Nico Luciani of Oxfam America has said that the US administration’s announcement is certainly commendable, but given the need, it can only be called ‘a drop of water in a bucket’.
Why is vaccination not being done fast?
The biggest challenge at the moment is the delivery of the corona vaccine.
As of June 8, 2021, only 81 million doses have been delivered to 129 member countries under the COVAX program, while 300 million doses have been delivered to immunize citizens in the United States alone. That is, countries that depend on Covax are lagging far behind in terms of vaccination.
The Covax scheme has largely relied on the India-made Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
But when India banned the export of the vaccine in March, April and May, there was a shortage in the supply of the vaccine globally. The Government of India had taken this decision in view of the second and most severe wave of Corona epidemic.
Serum Institute of India, one of India’s largest vaccine manufacturers, is said to have received an order to make 110 crore vaccine doses. But till now he has been able to give only 30 million doses to Kovax.
The company says that in view of the needs of India, it will be able to start exporting the vaccine only by the end of this year as it is yet to focus on supplying the vaccine in India.
At the same time, there is also a problem related to the attitude of some countries. For example, some African countries could not even use the vaccine before it expired and the vaccines became useless.
In this regard, the World Health Organization said that “African countries should speed up vaccination and use the vaccine they have received properly.”
