Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, renewed his warnings that the world will not be safe from the threat of Corona and whatever the level of vaccination in any country before the virus was controlled.
In a speech that opened the work of the World Health Assembly at its seventy-fourth session by default, Ghebreyesus warned that the changes that occur to the virus, known as mutations, may return the confrontation to zero.
He said that the “Kovacs” facility set up by the organization to deliver vaccines to low and middle-income countries does not have enough vaccines.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization called on countries with enough vaccines to share them with the international facility.
Ghebreyesus called for supporting the vaccination initiative presented to the World Health Assembly to achieve its goal of vaccinating up to 10% of the world’s population by next September and 30% by the end of the year.
He also urged countries to support the initiative of India and South Africa in the World Trade Organization, which calls for a waiver of intellectual property rights in order to allow the manufacture and production of vaccines in the largest possible number of countries, stressing that the world is still in a fragile situation facing Corona.
The Director-General expressed his regret that “a small group of countries” have a monopoly on Covid vaccines, as he stated that more than 75% of all vaccines have been provided in only 10 countries.
Dr. Tedros stated, “There is no diplomatic way to say this … a small group of countries that manufacture and buy the majority of vaccines controls the fate of the rest of the world.”
