More than two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many countries have succeeded in significantly slowing down the mortality caused by the virus, in particular thanks to massive vaccination.
However, as indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO) Committee of Experts on Immunization Policy (Sage), many countries are far from being in this situation.
Thus, vaccination coverage against Covid-19 would not exceed 10% in around twenty countries, most of them in Africa.
However, Kate O'Brien, head of vaccination at the World Health Organization, said at a press conference that this list of countries has been reduced since January, from 34 to 20.
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While most of the affected countries are in Africa, others are also found in the Eastern Mediterranean regions, America, Western Pacific and Southeast Asia.
"These are countries that are working really hard to advance their vaccination programs," said Kate O'Brien.
The person in charge of vaccination at the WHO insisted on the help provided by the organization and its partners, in particular Unicef, to raise the vaccination coverage of these countries: "We must ensure that it is the populations to high risk – those most in need of the vaccine and most at risk of serious illness or death, as well as healthcare workers – who receive vaccines first as immunization programs scale up.
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A coverage target of 70% by June
Also according to the WHO, overall, the available data indicate that coverage among high priority groups is "insufficient", while coverage of health workers is 65% overall, and that of the over 60s is 69%. .
The press release indicates that the international Covax mechanism has enough doses to vaccinate by June 70% of the population of the 92 low- and middle-income economies benefiting from this market guarantee.
The target set by the WHO is to vaccinate 70% of the population of each country by the middle of 2022.