NEW DELHI, Apr 22:
Vaccine inequity remains an issue both within India, where less than 2 per cent of the population has received a Covid booster, and the globe with 56 countries unable to inoculate even 10 percent of their people, says Johns Hopkins scientist Amita Gupta.
Tracking hospitalisation rates which provide an indicator of severity of illness is key, the chief of the Division of Infectious Disease, and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said while stressing that no one is safe from Covid until everyone in the world gets vaccinated.
She cited the example of the Omicron variant to buttress her point. The highly transmissible variant is believed to have emerged in November last year in South Africa and Botswana due to inadequate immunisation in African countries before spreading globally, Gupta said, adding that another variant is likely to follow the same trend.
“Global vaccine inequity remains an issue both within India and globally. For example, in the continent of Africa less than 20 per cent of the population is currently vaccinated and there are countries in Africa still with less than 2 per cent vaccinated,” Gupta told PTI in an email interview.
As immunities wane and new Covid variants emerge, it is more important than ever that communities are fully vaccinated and boosted, she said.
“It is not enough to fully vaccinate only a few countries. Health workers and highest-risk populations in all countries must be fully vaccinated to stop the pandemic,” she added.
In India, Gupta said, there are some hard to reach areas and there is urgent need to increase booster vaccination for those who are eligible.
“It is hard to predict whether further mutations in SARS-CoV-2 will increase or decrease the intrinsic virulence of the virus or the severity caused by it,” the public health expert said.
“What we do know is that no one is safe from COVID-19 until everyone in the world is safe. The vast majority of vaccines have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Fifty-six countries have been effectively excluded from the global vaccine marketplace and have not been able to vaccinate even 10 per cent of their population,” she added. (PTI)
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