From:Babagana Bukar Wakil, Maiduguri
128 million vaccine doses administered so far, more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for 60% of global GDP.
This was contain in a statement by UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore and World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
According to Ghebreyesus almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.
UNICEF and WHO – partners for more than 70 years call on leaders to look beyond their borders and employ a vaccine strategy that can actually end the pandemic and limit variants.
Health workers have been on the frontlines of the pandemic in lower- and middle-income settings and should be protected first so they can protect them.
She said COVAX participating countries are preparing to receive and use vaccines. Health workers have been trained, cold chain systems primed.
To ensure that vaccine rollouts begin in all countries in the first 100 days of 2021.
Governments that have vaccinated their own health workers and populations at highest risk of severe disease share vaccines through COVAX so other countries can do the same.
The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, and its vaccines pillar COVAX, is fully funded so that financing and technical support is available to lower- and middle-income countries for deploying and administering vaccines.
