Vaccine: IMF, WHO worried by failure to meet 2021 global target

INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank Group and World Health Organisation (WHO) joint taskforce on deployment of COVID-19 vaccines said unless urgent steps were taken, the world was unlikely to achieve the 2021 target of vaccinating at least 40 per cent of the population in all countries.

  A statement issued yesterday  by WHO made the assertion while  urging heads of International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organisation and World Trade Organisation to discuss strategies to improve access to COVID-19 vaccines, especially, in low and lower middle-income countries and in Africa as they met with leading vaccine manufacturing companies.

  Explaining that attainment of the set target was a critical milestone to end the pandemic and for global economic recovery, the taskforce noted that despite adequate total global vaccine production in the aggregate, the doses were not reaching low- and lower middle-income countries in sufficient amounts, resulting in a crisis of vaccine inequity.

  It, therefore, appealed to countries that have contracted high amounts of vaccine doses, and vaccine manufacturers, to come together in good faith to urgently accelerate COVID-19 vaccine supplies to COVAX and AVAT, two multilateral mechanisms that were crucial for equitable distribution of vaccines.