NEW DELHI, Sept 20, 2021 (BSS/XINHUA) - At a time when the United States
has approved COVID-19 booster shots, just 3.5 percent of Africans are
vaccinated, The Hindu reported on Sunday.
Quoting World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, the Indian newspaper underlined COVID-19 vaccine inequity across
the world.
On Sept 14, Ghebreyesus revealed that "less than 3.5 percent of people in
Africa have been fully vaccinated so far compared with 54 percent of the
total population in the United States," said the article.
"The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more the virus will keep
circulating and changing, the longer the social and economic disruption will
continue, and the higher the chances that more variants will emerge that
render vaccines less effective," Ghebreyesus was quoted as saying,
underlining a threat not only to Africa but the whole world.
According to the newspaper, vaccine inequity between high- and low-income
countries was striking.
"More than 75 percent of all vaccines have been administered in just 10
countries ... 60.1 percent of the people in the high-income countries have
been vaccinated with at least one dose as on September 15, while in the low-
income countries, it is just 3 percent," the newspaper said.
Quoting Africa's WHO regional office, the newspaper said that 42 of
Africa's 54 nations -- nearly 80 percent -- are set to miss their targets if
the current pace of vaccine deliveries and vaccinations hold.
In June, the G7 nations promised to share 870 million doses to COVAX but
released just 100 million, it said, adding that though high-income countries
had promised to donate more than 1 billion doses, less than 15 percent of the
amount has materialised.