Medical experts worldwide are worried about the spread of the Delta variant of COVID that first appeared in India. The strain is considered more transmissible than other forms of the coronavirus, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), has a warning for the world.
According to Newsweek.com, Mr. Ghebreyesus claims that the Delta variant is actually the most transmissible form of COVID and that it’s spreading across 85 countries. The director general of the WHO also didn’t hesitate to invoke some reasons for the spread.
Poorer countries are going through difficult times
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attributed the spread of the Delta variant to the lack of vaccines provided for poorer countries. The WHO director general also said that richer nations are to blame.
Ghebreyesus said, as cited by Newsweek:
It took 10 years (for antiretrovirals) to reach the low-income countries after (HIV) was already rampant in high-income countries,
Do we want to repeat the same thing?
COVAX, meaning the U.N.-backed effort for distributing vaccines to poorer countries, has missed a few targets when it comes to sharing the jabs. Dr. Bruce Aylward, who is a senior adviser to the WHO chief, declared as also cited by Newsweek:
We have through COVAX this month zero doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, zero doses of Pfizer vaccine, zero doses of (Johnson and Johnson) vaccine. Every single one of our suppliers is unable to supply during this period because others are making demands on those products, others who are vaccinating very young populations that are not at risk.
The Our World in Data webpage reveals that, so far, 22.6% of the planet’s population has been vaccinated for COVID with at least the first dose. 2.8 billion vaccine doses were administered across the world.
