Only one of the world’s 29 poorest countries has started coronavirus vaccinations

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Only one of the world’s 29 poorest countries has started coronavirus vaccinations

Wed, 2021-01-27 00:09 — mike kraft

Only one of the world’s 29 poorest countries has started coronavirus vaccinations WHO officials said last week that the West African nation of Guinea is the only low-income country to begin administering doses. And those efforts have been limited. Adam Taylor, Danielle Paquette Washington Post

In more than 50 countries, most of them wealthy, coronavirus vaccination efforts are well underway, with some 20 million doses already distributed in the United States alone. But most poorer nations have yet to even begin.

World Health Organization officials said last week that the West African nation of Guinea is the only low-income country of 29 to begin vaccinating. And those efforts have been limited in scope — just 55 people out of population of more than 12 million have received doses so far.

The initiative, using the Russia-backed Sputnik V vaccine, began on Dec. 30, as part of pilot program, carried out on an “experimental basis,” Sakoba Keita, director general of Guinea’s National Health Security Agency, told The Post.

The Russian government proposed the idea, in a “climate of good bilateral relations,” and Guinea accepted, Keita said. Most of the initial vaccinations went to government workers: President Alpha Condé, 82, received a shot in early January.

“We now face the real danger that even as vaccines bring hope to some, they become another brick in the wall of inequality between the worlds of the world’s haves and have-nots,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing last week. ..0

Thomas J. Bollyky, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that while the trend was “depressing and disheartening,” it had been evident for months that wealthy nations had been buying up most of the supply of vaccines.

“I can’t say it’s surprising,” said Bollyky. “In every previous pandemic where we have our global health crisis, where there has been limited supplies of medical intervention, wealthy nations have hoarded.”

Ranu S. Dhillon, an infectious-disease expert at Harvard Medical School, said he was concerned that allowing the virus to spread widely in countries without the means to procure vaccines could allow more variants to emerge, against which vaccines could be less effective. ...

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