Equitable Distribution Of Coronavirus Vaccines Cannot Be Over-Emphasized – WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has come out to say that no fewer than 42 countries are already rolling out the various COVID-19 vaccines which have been cleared for use.

WHO’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus recently revealed this during the COVID-19 news conference at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

According to him, 36 of these nations are high-income countries, and equitable distribution of the vaccines cannot be overemphasized.

He added that vaccine nationalism hurts everyone, as it is very self-defeating and selfish.

“There’s a clear problem that low and most middle-income countries are not receiving the vaccine yet.”

“We can and must solve this problem together through COVAX and the ACT-Accelerator”.

“And we also have the right of first refusal on an additional one billion doses,”

“Vaccine nationalism hurts us all and this is self-defeating,”

“If we don’t reduce transmission and vaccinate equitably, we’re helping it to thrive.”

“Going forward, I want to see manufacturers prioritise supply and rollout through COVAX. I urge countries and manufacturers to stop making bilateral deals at the expense of COVAX.”

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Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.