The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on all countries to play their part in distributing CoViD-19 vaccines equally.

“A me-first approach leaves the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people at risk,” said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 27 January.

“Some countries and companies are making bilateral deals, going around COVAX, driving up prices and attempting to jump to the front of the queue.”

COVAX was established with the aim to ensure all participating countries [including Tonga], regardless of income levels, will have equal access to the vaccines.

“The situation is compounded by the fact that most manufacturers have prioritized regulatory approval in rich countries, rather than submitting full dossiers to WHO for Emergency Use Listing,” said Dr Ghebreyesus.

“It is understandable that governments want to prioritize vaccinating their own health workers and older people first.”

“But it is not right that younger, healthier adults in rich countries are vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries.”

“It is also self-defeating. These actions will only prolong the pandemic, the restrictions needed to contain it, and the human and economic suffering,” he said.

With the emergence of rapidly-spreading variants of the virus, speedy and equitable rollout of the vaccines is important.

Meanwhile, WHO is aiming to vaccinate health workers and older people in all countries within the first 100 days of this year.

COVAX has now secured two billion doses from five producers, with options on more than one billion more doses for 2021 and early 2022.

“We expect COVAX to make its first deliveries next month,” said Dr Ghebreyesus.

"For lower-income funded nations, who would otherwise be unable to afford these vaccines, as well as a number of higher-income self-financing countries that have no bilateral deals with manufacturers, COVAX is quite literally a lifeline and the only viable way in which their citizens will get access to COVID-19 vaccines."

COVAX

COVAX is coordinated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the WHO.

It is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was launched in April by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission and France in response to this pandemic.