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Vaccini, Draghi: “Italy will donate 45 million doses within the year to the poorest countries”

“By the end of the year we will donate 45 million doses.” It is the announcement of the premier Mario Draghi at the Global Covid-19 Summit, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “We are ready to triple our efforts,” said the premier, speaking of the donation of doses of vaccines. They will go to the poorest countries.

At the Global Health Summit in Rome Draghi announced that Italy would donate 15 million doses. Now the number is three times higher. The prime minister said that we need to be ready to be more generous.

“We have made great progress, but there are still great inequalitiesHe explained speaking of the Covax program.

“Global cooperation is essential to allow this pandemic emergency to end and to prevent health emergencies. In the world 2.5 billion people are vaccinated and one billion are partially vaccinated “he added,” one of the weaknesses in the global response to the pandemic has been insufficient coordination between health and financial authorities. As presidency of the G20 we want to establish the “Global Health and Finance Board” which will enhance global cooperation in governance and financing for the response and prevention to pandemics ».

As production capacity increases, the main challenge will be how to transport vaccines, not how to produce them. THE vaccines they are therefore there, but a whole part of the world is excluded and instead health is a global public good and must be preserved everywhere.

In Rome, the G20 health ministers had supported the WHO with the aim of vaccinating at least 40% of the global population by the end of 2021. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, had indicated the way: “Help each country to vaccinate at least 40% of the population by the end of the year“. For the middle of next year, the goal is to have “70% of the world population” vaccinated.

In richer countries, well over 50% of the population has already been vaccinated. In Africa there are countries that have not even vaccinated 1% of their population. It is an inequality that the WHO has denounced and for which it has asked for donations from rich countries.

According to Our World in Data, just 2% of the population in the poorest countries has had at least one dose of the vaccine. As of September 21, Tanzania is at 0.57%, Kenya at 4.6%. Italy exceeded 73% of vaccinated with one dose and over 66% for full vaccination. The vaccination coverage of rich countries does not make sense and utility, however, if the virus continues to circulate in the rest of the world. New variants could arise that could be resistant to the vaccines now available.

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