简体中文
FILE PHOTO: Technicians show empty containers used for the transport of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after the vaccines were put into refrigerated storage units at the central vaccine depot in Kitengela town on the outskirts of Nairobi, in Kenya Thursday, March 4, 2021. /Ben Curtis /VCG
Kenya has reiterated calls for a resolution on vaccine equity in the world's fight against COVID-19, even as the pandemic continues to batter different regions globally.
Speaking during the 74th World Health Assembly, Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe said the pandemic would only be defeated if nations worked together.
"There have been clear demonstrations of vaccine nationalism or vaccine apartheid. Such actions will not stop the virus," national KBC broadcaster quotes Kagwe.
Kagwe called out nations that had defied the WHO's call to stop vaccinating their youth while elderly persons and those at high risk in other countries had not received the life-saving jabs.
"Appreciating the fact that none is safe until we are all safe must mean that to vaccinate generally safe 13-year-olds in one country while denying high-risk adults' access to the vaccine in another country is a damning contradiction of this principle," he noted.
Kenya, with a population of more than 52 million, has only managed to vaccinate 954,515 people so far, since its mass inoculation drive was launched in early March.
The situation is similar or worse in other countries in Africa and the poor countries across the world.
A report by WHO earlier this month noted that, only 0.3 percent of COVID-19 vaccine supply is going to low-income countries.
Africa at large has administered just over 22 million vaccine doses, which account for less than 2 percent of the over 1.3 billion COVID-19 vaccines given globally so far.
Approximately 40 nations on the continent rely on doses from the WHO’s COVAX initiative and the Serum Institute of India. These countries have recently struggled to obtain the vital jabs as vaccines made in India are diverted for domestic use amid a worsened situation there.
In his speech on Tuesday, Kagwe called for more manufacturing of vaccines around the world, which could be made possible by the enactment of a proposed vaccine patent waiver fronted by South Africa and India, and supported by hundreds of countries including Kenya.
"We must step up regional and local manufacturing of vaccines by facilitating and fast tracking regulatory and prequalification for local production, especially in Africa in WHO processes," said Kagwe.
