Coronavirus: even vaccines for all the world’s vulnerable is no guarantee of a ‘silver bullet’, says WHO
- Most people beyond high risk and high priority may be vaccinated by late 2023, although many unknowns remain, says global health agency
- An internal Gavi board report says the ‘risk of a failure to establish a successful Covax Facility is very high’
Takeshi Kasai, the global health agency’s regional director for the Western Pacific, said on Thursday the vaccine roll-out for most in the region would likely be in mid to late 2021 but that vaccines would initially be available in limited quantities and high-risk groups should be a priority.
“If the right scale and type of investment are made, the end of 2021, next year, should have adequate doses to vaccinate a high-priority population in all countries around the world,” he said. “For others, beyond those high-risk groups, we may be looking for another 12 to 24 months before the majority of people have received this vaccine, and even then, there is some uncertainty and unknowns.”
The WHO has said people older than 60 and those with underlying health conditions are considered high risk. Health care workers and essential workers are seen as priority groups for vaccination.
While Kasai said news of early vaccine roll-outs in Britain and the United States was “very promising”, he cautioned that developing safe vaccines was different to producing them in quantities big enough to reach everyone.
