GENEVA, Sept 30 — Up to 100 million additional doses of any eventual Covid-19 vaccines will be secured for delivery to poorer countries in 2021, health groups announced yesterday, as the virus showed no sign of receding after claiming more than one million lives around the world.
The announcement doubles the number of doses already secured from the Serum Institute of India by the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, following an initial agreement last month.
The public-private health partnership stressed that the eventual total is “potentially several times” greater, and said the price would be capped at US$3 (RM12.50) per dose.
“No country, rich or poor, should be left at the back of the queue when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines; this collaboration brings us another step closer to achieving this goal,” Gavi chief Seth Berkley said in a statement.
As nine vaccine candidates are in last-stage trials, the World Health Organisation is stepping up efforts to provide faster and cheaper testing to poorer countries.
The WHO said Monday that some 120 million rapid tests for Covid-19 will be made available to low- and middle-income countries at US$5 each under a US$600-million scheme — as long as funding can be secured.
The kits — faster, cheaper and easier to administer than regular standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab tests, but also less reliable — will be rolled out across 133 countries in the next six months.
“This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have lab facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out PCR tests,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.
Experts have for months been calling for widespread adoption of this low-cost technology so that people can test themselves several times a week.
European wave
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that “responsible leadership matters” in steering the world through the pandemic.
“Science matters. Cooperation matters — and misinformation kills,” he warned, urging people to respect familiar infection control measures like hand-washing, distancing and mask-wearing.
Meanwhile, case numbers are climbing rapidly in Europe, whose governments are clamping down on movement in an attempt to curb the surge.
Germany introduced new limits on the number of people who can attend private events, after Spain, France, Britain and Northern Ireland all imposed fresh restrictions in recent days.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said “a reaction is necessary” after recent outbreaks were frequently traced to weddings and other gatherings.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared to share general confusion about his government's measures, apologising via Twitter after wrongly saying that rules limiting gatherings in northeast England to no more than six people did not apply outdoors.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia said they were preparing to declare a state of emergency.
In Greece, the first cruise ship to sail to the country since its lockdown was given the virus all-clear after a “false alarm” among crew members forced it to dock.
In Israel, which has the world's highest infection rate per capita, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said yesterday that there was “no way” the country's second nationwide coronavirus lockdown would be lifted after three weeks as originally planned.
'Concern' in New York
Across the Atlantic, former coronavirus hotspot New York's rate of positive tests surged to more than three percent from below two in just 24 hours, authorities said, adding that Orthodox Jewish communities have faced a particularly sharp increase.
The figures were a “real cause for concern,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters as he introduced fines for those not wearing masks in public and said he would meet virtually with Orthodox Jewish leaders.
More than one in ten of the 203,107 people who have so far died of coronavirus in the US were New Yorkers.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden were gearing up for a first televised election debate, with the country's response to the virus likely to be a key battleground.
Worldwide the virus has now infected almost 33.5 million people and killed over a million, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources.
Mid-September saw a record rise in cases in most regions and the WHO has warned that virus deaths could even double to two million without more global collective action.
On Monday, the number of cases in India surpassed six million, with the country on course to overtake the United States in the coming weeks as the nation with the most infections.
The country's lead pandemic agency said Tuesday that as many as 60 million of India's 1.3 billion population could already have been infected, based on a study of blood antibodies. — AFP
