INTERNATIONAL. Travel services specialist Collinson has joined forces with the WHO Foundation to support the Go Give One campaign.
Go Give One is a COVID-19 fundraising campaign with no borders. Created by the World Health Organization’s WHO Foundation, the campaign calls on everyone, everywhere to play their part in helping to vaccinate the world. Every US$5 donated buys a vaccine, managed by Gavi COVAX AMC, which funds COVID-19 vaccines for lower-income countries in order to help protect those who need it the most.
Collinson said that the travel and tourism industry “knows only too well” that when it comes to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping the world moving safely, it is essential that “everyone, everywhere” has access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines.
However, to date, 69% of vaccines distributed globally have been concentrated in just ten countries, the group pointed out. As some countries administer a third booster jab, many people around the world have not even had access to their first vaccine, Collinson said.
“Vaccine inequity is epidemiologically and economically self-defeating. Low vaccine coverage may allow COVID variants to arise, threatening the protective power of existing vaccines,” said Collinson Joint CEO David Evans.
They may both be Greek but Omicron is not Armageddon Think about those damning statistics. Ten countries. 69%. President Ramaphosa called the Omicron variant a wake-up call for the world regarding vaccine inequality. Until everyone is vaccinated, more variants are inevitable, he said. The phrase “No-one is safe until we are all safe” has been bandied around endlessly since the early days of the vaccine roll-outs. How much has been done about it? All of us in the travel industry need to help change that or our sector will continue to be kicked from pillar to post. |
“So poor coverage in low-income countries will cost the global economy trillions of dollars – even if high income countries have good vaccine coverage. We have a moral and economic responsibility to ensure that everyone, no matter where they are in the world, has access to life-saving COVID-19 vaccines.”
To reach the World Health Organization’s (WHO) target of vaccinating 40% of the population of every country by the end of this year, an additional 550 million doses are needed.
Footnote: Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday that China will provide Africa with another 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine, state media Global Times reported. Xi was speaking by video at the 8th Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
Comment: The vaccine inequity that David Evans refers to has been underlined over recent days as reports of the new Omicron COVID-19 variant emerged from southern Africa. While governments rush to close travel lanes to Africa, the bigger issue of the paucity of vaccines in the world’s second-biggest, second-most populous continent has largely been overlooked.
Numerous medical studies have concluded thathaving large unvaccinated populations risks the evolution of more transmissible, more virulent variants. No-one can say that the world was not warned.
In a joint statement yesterday on donations of COVID-19 vaccines to African countries by the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and COVAX called for greater assistance and more concerted action from developed economies.
“The majority of the donations to-date have been ad hoc, provided with little notice and short shelf lives. This has made it extremely challenging for countries to plan vaccination campaigns and increase absorptive capacity,” the statement said. “To achieve higher coverage rates across the continent, and for donations to be a sustainable source of supply that can complement supply from AVAT and COVAX purchase agreements, this trend must change.
“Countries need predictable and reliable supply. Having to plan at short notice and ensure uptake of doses with short shelf lives exponentially magnifies the logistical burden on health systems that are already stretched. Furthermore, ad hoc supply of this kind utilises capacity – human resources, infrastructure, cold chain – that could be directed towards long-term successful and sustainable rollout. It also dramatically increases the risks of expiry once doses with already short shelf-lives arrive in country, which may have long-term repercussions for vaccine confidence.
“Donations to COVAX, AVAT, and African countries must be made in a way that allows countries to effectively mobilise domestic resources in support of rollout and enables long-term planning to increase coverage rates.”
The parties called on the international community, particularly donors and manufacturers, to commit to this effort by adhering to a set of standards, beginning from 1 January 2022
- Quantity and predictability: Donor countries should endeavour to release donated doses in large volumes and in a predictable manner, to reduce transaction costs.
- Earmarking: These doses should be unearmarked for greatest effectiveness and to support long-term planning. Earmarking makes it far more difficult to allocate supply based on equity, and to account for specific countries’ absorptive capacity.
- Shelf life: As a default, donated doses should have a minimum of ten weeks’ shelf life when they arrive in-country, with limited exceptions only where recipient countries indicate willingness and ability to absorb doses with shorter shelf lives.
- Early notice: Recipient countries need to be made aware of the availability of donated doses not less than four weeks before their tentative arrival in-country.
- Response times: All stakeholders should seek to provide rapid response on essential information. This includes essential supply information from manufacturers (total volumes available for donation, shelf life, manufacturing site), confirmation of donation offer from donors, and acceptance/refusal of allocations from countries.
- Ancillaries: The majority of donations to-date do not include the necessary vaccination supplies such as syringes and diluent, nor do they cover freight costs – meaning these have to be sourced separately – leading to additional costs, complexity and delay.