“The only way to slow down this disease is to ensure that all people at risk are vaccinated,” said a World Health Organization. In Africa, only 7.8% of the population are fully vaccinated.
Le Monde with AP and AFP
While the Omicron variant of SARS-COV-2, first detected in Southern Africa, continues to spread around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) has made it reminding the Order. developed countries so that they do not use vaccine doses to the detriment of poorer countries and whose population is less vaccinated.
“There is a risk that global stocks are again redirected to high-income countries who want to accumulate vaccines to protect their population to excess,” said, Thursday, December 9, Dr. Kate O’Brien, head of the WHO vaccination branch.
“The only way to slow down this disease is to ensure that all people at risk are vaccinated. We are forgetting that in some countries,” she hammered, adding that a new Vaccine buying frenzy by rich countries would only extend the pandemic:
“If we do not deliver vaccines to all countries, from an epidemiological point of view, it does not work and it does not work either from the point of view of transmission.”
No scientific certainty as to a third indispensable dose
There is still a lack of data to affirm, after the occurrence of the Omicron Variant, that VVID-19 vaccine reminder doses are essential to prevent those already vaccinated with the most serious forms of the disease.
Pfizer and Biontech, who manufacture one of the RNA messenger vaccines, published a preliminary study on Wednesday, claiming that it was more effective against Omicron if three doses were administered instead of the two recommended for others variants. WHO seized the data of this study, “said O’Brien, and it could” that additional doses can better protect against Omicron, “she says, but “We are only at the very beginning.” At present, the WHO only recognizes that the new variant seems to have a higher reinfection rate for the diseases of the disease or vaccinated, but causes less severe symptoms.
in Africa, Only 7.8% of the population are fully vaccinated
Kate O’Brien recalled that the world was only beginning to tackle immunization inequality, with the acceleration of donations from rich countries, through the COVAX program, and more deliveries provided for countries. where the vaccination rate of caregivers and vulnerable people remains very below what would be necessary.
This is particularly the case in Africa, where only 7.8% of the population are currently fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to WHO data. It is on this continent that the Omicron variant has caused the most contaminations. Africa has recorded more than 107,000 new cases of CVIV-19 during the week ending on December 5, compared with 55,000 the previous week, the remaining Omicron share in this increase, specifies WHO. -Africa. In Southern Africa, this increase averaged 140%.
But, “Sign of hope”, the first data from South Africa indicate that the “Omicron could cause less severe forms of the disease,” says WHO-Africa: between November 14th And on December 4th, the occupancy rate of hospital in intensive care was only 6.3%.