The World Health Organization (WHO) has referred to the COVID-19 global crisis as a “two-track pandemic.”
The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the public is facing a “two-track pandemic” earlier in June. This came after seeing “encouraging signs” due to the decreasing number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, yet progress was still showing a “mixed picture.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained that many nations across the globe were still in “extremely dangerous situations” because of low vaccination rates. Conversely, countries with high rates were already discussing their exit from restrictions.
Despite all the efforts, things have not changed, and many nations have yet to vaccinate at least ten percent of their respective populations. On Thursday, then, the health agency unveiled a plan that aims to help end the global crisis.
A “new strategy” to help bring an end to the crisis
The United Nations News released a report on the matter, detailing the “new strategy” of the World Health Organization (WHO). As announced, the plan aims to vaccinate 40 percent of the global population by the end of 2021, and 70 percent come mid-2022.
During the virtual launch, the U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres urged countries to “unite” and make the new strategy a success. He emphasized the need to “urgently bring all countries to a high level of vaccination coverage.”
The publication noted that the new global plan will need 11 billion vaccines to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. It will entail a “three-step approach,” vaccinating in groups, starting from older people, health workers, and high-risk individuals to all adults, and then adolescents.
An “allocation problem,” as per WHO
At a media briefing on Thursday, the Director General of the WHO also shared a few words about the world’s vaccination status. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that the production of the vaccines currently stands at 1.5 billion doses every month. Accordingly, there is enough to supply for everyone, as long as the jabs are “distributed equitably.”
He shared, however, that wealthy nations have used 75 percent of all the available vaccines. Meanwhile, only less than half of one percent of the jabs have reportedly gone to low-income nations.
In the end, the WHO chief asserted that there is no supply problem in terms of the COVID-19 vaccines. Rather, he claimed that it is an “allocation problem.”
Vaccination status across the globe
As of the time of writing, Our World In Data reports that 46.3 percent of the world population has received at least a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. However, only 2.4 percent is the share of those who have had at least a jab in low-income nations.
Meanwhile, the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that over 2.6 billion individuals have already completed their vaccinations.
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