WHO, UN Introduce New Steps to Meet World COVID Vaccination Objectives

In a step intended to help bring an end to what has become a two-track pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday launched a new concrete strategy to achieve the Global Covid-19 Vaccination target by mid-2022.

The new strategy is proposing a comprehensive plan for achieving WHO’s targets to vaccinate 40% of the population of every country by the end of this year and 70% by mid-2022.

WHO, UN also urged all countries of the two spheres to take these bold steps to meet world COVID vaccination targets, pointing out that the international community should pursue these efforts together to fight this awful virus in all its ramifications.

According to a joint statement released on Oct. 6 by UN, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Science has played its part by delivering powerful, life-saving tools faster than for any outbreak in history."

“But the concentration of those tools in the hands of a few countries and companies has led to a global catastrophe, with the rich protected while the poor remain exposed to a deadly virus. We can still achieve the targets for this year and next, but it will take a level of political commitment, action, and cooperation, beyond what we have seen to date,” the statement noted.

On his part, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres revealed: “This is a coordinated and credible path out of the COVID-19 pandemic for everyone, everywhere."

“Without a coordinated, equitable approach, a reduction of cases in any one country will not be sustained over time. For everyone’s sake, we must urgently bring all countries to a high level of vaccination coverage.”

In order to achieve the global vaccination objectives, there should be a three-step approach to vaccination, including all older adults, health workers, and high-risk groups of all ages, in every country vaccinated first, followed by the full adult age group in every country and lastly extended vaccination of adolescents.

In the same context, the joint statement also mentioned that "Vaccinating 70% of the global population requires at least 11 billion vaccine doses.  By the end of September, just over 6 billion doses had already been administered worldwide."

With global vaccine production now at nearly 1.5 billion doses per month, there is sufficient vaccine from a supply perspective to achieve the global vaccination targeting provided that there is equitable distribution of those doses.

Substantial financing has already been invested to procure most of the required vaccine doses for low- and lower-middle-income countries through COVAX, the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), and bilateral contracts. 

Ultimately, WHO, UN affirmed the urgent need to finance large investments to meet interrelated Covid-19 threats as soon as possible.

These investments will be also essential to secure the remaining vaccine doses for these countries as well as investment to support in-country delivery.  

The UN and WHO comprehensive strategy recommends several actions:

• Governments must expand investment in Social Protection Floors as a percentage of GDP in national budgets.
• Moreover, they must establish updated national COVID-19 vaccine targets and plans defining dose requirements to guide manufacturing investment and vaccine redistribution, and financial and programmatic resource needs to guide internal planning and external support;
• In addition, they must monitor vaccine demand and uptake carefully to rapidly adapt services and ensure continuity of vaccine supplies;
• They also must commit to equitable distribution of vaccines in line with the WHO three-step approach;
• In the same vein, they must revise national vaccination strategies, policies and prioritization as needed to harness emerging evidence to maximize the impact of existing, modified and new vaccines.