Covid-19 and the fire that will burn everyone – Prensa Latina

Medical experts and the media warn that developed countries do nothing to douse the fires in their territories when they are more wicked and destructive in other nations.

The New York Times warned at the weekend that the more the virus spreads, the more likely it is to turn into something more contagious, deadly, or vaccine-resistant.

Low and middle-income countries face an excessive shortage of coronavirus vaccines that threatens to jeopardize progress against the epidemic.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people will continue to fall ill and die, even as the disease recedes in the richest countries. More fragile economies will continue to falter, and the gains made elsewhere will eventually be jeopardized.

Once vaccines entered clinical trials, the New York Times reported, rich countries began stockpiling doses, ensuring that instead of benefiting the world’s most vulnerable people, their populations ranked first, without thinking of blanket immunization.

Rising costs of obtaining doses and restrictions on access to raw materials are burdening global efforts to tackle a pandemic affecting rich and poor alike.

By excluding them from purchasing vaccines, these same countries have also found that they cannot manufacture them themselves.

It happens when several UN agencies today join a social media campaign marking Global Immunization Week, which this year highlights the importance of vaccines against Covid-19.

The pandemic reveals all that is at stake when vaccine protection is not available, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres explained in his official Twitter account.

However, it is realistic that companies and states stockpile raw materials and technical knowledge, and prevent poor countries from suspending patents despite international treaties that allow such measures in emergency situations.

The richest countries account for 16 percent of the world’s population, but possess 53 percent of all doses of coronavirus acquired, according to the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy in the United States.

Currently, nearly 60 countries have asked the World Trade Organization to allow countries to temporarily revoke intellectual property rights for medicines and vaccines related to Covid-19, but there is no response yet.

The World Health Organization has set up a joint fund through which companies and countries can exchange technology and expertise with governments trying to expand vaccine manufacturing, an effort in which Cuba is participating in studying five candidate vaccines despite the US blockade.

On the other hand, the epidemic is spreading in India as a sign that it must be quenched across the world.

That country recorded another 2,812 deaths on Monday due to the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the highest number in 24 hours, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

They are terrifying characters. The dismal situation in that country due to the epidemic shows 2 million 813 thousand 658 patients. The total number of positive cases now stands at 17,313,163, including 14,330,382 patients who have recovered from the infection.

This Asian country is just a sample of what the epidemic could cause if there was no global agreement to confront the crisis that threatens to spread when it is known that with the exception of a few efforts such as those of Cuba, vaccines are not manufactured in Africa and very few are manufactured in Latin America .

In order for the flame of the epidemic not to continue to advance, there is a need for more humanity and solidarity in the world, removing obstacles to raw materials for the production of vaccines and exchanging technologies with everyone without sovereignty over narrow economic standards.

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