COPENHAGEN, Feb 5, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Europe and pharma groups must work
together to speed up Covid-19 vaccinations, the head of the European branch
of the World Health Organization said Friday, expressing concern about the
effectiveness of vaccines on virus variants.
“We need to join up to speed up vaccinations,” WHO Europe director Hans
Kluge told AFP in an interview, as Europe bids to overcome a slow start to
its vaccination campaign amid tensions between Brussels and vaccine
manufacturers.
“Otherwise competing pharmaceutical companies (must) join efforts to
drastically increase production capacity … that’s what we need,” Kluge
said.
In the European Union, just 2.5 percent of the population has received a
first vaccine dose, though announcements by several laboratories of increased
vaccine deliveries have raised hopes of an acceleration.
Asked whether the vaccines available since December would be effective
against new virus variants, Kluge replied: “That’s the big question. I’m
concerned.”
“We have to be prepared” for new problematic mutations of the virus, he
warned, calling on countries to expand their genomic sequencing capacity.
“It’s a cruel reminder that the virus still has the upper hand on the human
being.”
– ‘Tunnel a little bit longer’ –
Of the 53 countries in the WHO’s European region — which includes several
countries in central Asia — 37 have reported cases of the British variant
and 17 have registered cases of the South African variant.
While the fight against the pandemic now appears more challenging than in
December when the first vaccines became available, Kluge remained optimistic.
“I’ll be honest, I think that the tunnel is a little bit longer than what I
thought at the end of December, but it’s going to be manageable, more
preventable this year.”
“‘The’ solution or ‘the’ strategy doesn’t exist. We have to get better at
what we do and we are getting better,” he said.
He reiterated the WHO’s call for rich countries to show solidarity toward
poor nations unable to buy vaccines, urging wealthy ones to share their doses
after having inoculated a portion of their own population.
“Maybe if EU countries vaccinate 20 percent of their population — — and
you need 70 percent for herd immunity — but we could say for example that if
they hit 20 percent would mean elderly people, health care workers, people
with comorbidity — if they hit 20 percent maybe that’s the moment that they
can already start to share some vaccines,” he suggested.
The milestone of 100 million vaccine doses administered was passed on
Tuesday, with 65 percent of jabs given in high-income countries, according to
World Bank criteria.
– Sharing doses –
In a bid to combat “vaccine nationalism”, the WHO has set up Covax, a
global inoculation-sharing initiative to help poor countries.
“We know that in the EU, Canada, UK, US, they all ordered and made deals
for four to nine times more doses than they need. So my point here is, don’t
wait until you have 70 percent of the population (vaccinated) to share with
the Balkans, to share with central Asia, Africa.”
While the WHO is in favour of countries issuing vaccination certificates,
Kluge was opposed to the idea of “vaccination passports” required for travel.
“We certainly don’t want to have a situation where there are so-called
vaccine passports, that’s something that we are definitely not subscribing to
because it will increase inequities.”