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In the middle of last year, the World Health Organization to start Encouraging an ambitious goal, he said, is essential to ending the pandemic: to fully vaccinate 70 percent of the population in each country against Covid-19 by June 2022.

Now it is clear that by the deadline, the world will be far behind this target. And there is a growing sense of resignation among public health professionals that high Covid vaccine coverage may never be achieved in most low-income countries as much-needed funding from the United States dries up and both governments and donors turn to other priorities.

Nigeria’s former health minister and currently serving as a consultant to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. “The truth is, there is a loss of momentum,” Isaac Adewole said.

only a few in the world 82 poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal — you have reached the 70 percent vaccination threshold. Many are below 20 percent, according to data compiled from government sources. Our World in Data A project at Oxford University.

By comparison, about two-thirds of the world richest countries reached 70 percent. (The United States is at 66 percent.)

The consequences of giving up on achieving high worldwide vaccine coverage can be serious. Public health experts say abandoning the global effort could lead to the emergence of dangerous new variants that will threaten the world’s precarious efforts to live with the virus.

CEO of the nonprofit Gavi, Dr. “This pandemic is not over yet – far from it – and it is imperative that countries use the doses available to them to protect their populations as much as possible,” said Seth Berkeley. global vaccine clearinghouse Covax.

Countries around the world, including some in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, have seen vaccination rates drop in recent months. in one third or less than their population. But Africa’s vaccination rate remains the most depressing.

Less than 17 percent of Africans received a primary Covid vaccine. almost half Half of the vaccine doses delivered to the continent so far have not been used. Number of doses injected on the continent in the past month fell 35 percent compared to February. WHO officials attributed the decline to smaller-scale campaigns that replaced mass vaccination crackdowns in several countries.

Some global health experts say the world missed an important opportunity to deliver vaccines to low-income countries last year, as the public feared more about Covid and was motivated to get vaccinated.

“There was a time when people were so desperate to get vaccinated, but vaccines weren’t there. Then they realized that they did not die without being vaccinated,” he said. Wanting to see that countries continue to pursue their 70 percent goal, Dr. adewole

The remaining momentum in the global vaccination campaign has been hampered by a lack of funds for the equipment, transport and personnel needed to arm itself.

In the United States, a major funder of vaccination efforts, lawmakers have removed the $5 billion earmarked for global pandemic relief from the coronavirus response package, which is expected to be voted on in the next few weeks. Biden administration officials said said that without the funds, they would not be able to provide support for vaccine delivery to the more than 20 unvaccinated countries.

Some public health experts point to reasons to be optimistic that the global vaccination campaign is still steaming. Number of Covid vaccines administered daily in Africa, despite decline from February peak still close to the peak of the pandemic. And Gavi earlier this month drew an important new tour Although it fell short of its $5.2 billion target, it secured $4.8 billion in commitments.

there is also a hope global covid summit What the White House plans to co-host next month may be an opportunity to build momentum and fundraise.

But the decline in public demand has caused some health officials and experts to quietly and in some cases directly question whether the 70 percent vaccine target is viable or even sensible.

Reported deaths from Covid-19 remain relatively low in sub-Saharan Africa, but there is a discussion About how much of this reflects poor data tracking. However, the perception in many countries in the region is that the disease does not pose a serious threat, with scarce health resources and other common health problems requiring attention.

Civil society representative Fifa Rahman said many low-income governments have turned their focus to their economies and other health issues such as HIV. group initiated by WHO coordinating the global Covid response. “There’s a feeling that there are a lot of competitive priorities, but that’s a sign that the momentum is fading. Because when the momentum is there, everybody says, ‘Where are our vaccines?’ he was saying.”

For example, in rural areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the reported Covid death rate is very low, there is an increase in measles cases threatening 20 million children. Christopher Mambula, medical director of Médecins Sans Frontières in East Africa, said the government could not allocate resources to provide additional measles vaccines this year. In this kind of context, he said it doesn’t make much sense to continue to divert resources to widespread vaccination against Covid.

Interest in ordering more doses has waned as African governments receive more vaccines donated from wealthy countries and have difficulty even distributing these supplies.

The African Union still aims to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the end of 2022. But because countries were slow to use donated vaccines, the bloc did not exercise options to order more doses of vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.

South African drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare concluded earlier this year an agreement Bottling and marketing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine across Africa, a contract billed as an early step towards Africa developing a robust vaccine manufacturing industry. Aspen’s CEO, Stephen Saad, said Aspen is ready for production, but no buyers, including the African Union and Covax, have yet placed an order.

The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, stopped production Covid shots in December last year, when the stock rose to 200 million doses; Bharat Biotech, one of the leading manufacturers in India, also stopped production of vaccines due to low demand. The companies say they have no further orders since their contract with the Indian government expired in March.

After WHO began supporting the 70 percent vaccination target, many low-income governments adopted this target for their populations. The Biden administration also approved it last September, setting a deadline for September 2022.

At the time, two doses of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna had proven to provide very strong protection against even mild illnesses, and there was still hope that achieving high levels of vaccine coverage would tame the virus. But the emergence of new variants and the spread of the virus in Africa changed the calculus.

Vaccine regimens planned for the developing world provided little protection Against infection with the Omicron variant. And since sub-Saharan African countries were excluded from vaccine distribution for much of last year, more and more Africans gained natural protection against the virus, which studies have shown work as well as two doses of mRNA in preventing infection. New data from WHO show that at least two-thirds of Africans were infected with the virus prior to the Omicron wave.

Given these factors, some public health experts in Africa say the broad 70 percent target no longer makes sense. “It’s of little value. In fact, we’re going to gain a lot more by reaching over 90 percent of people over 50.” About two-thirds of South Africans over 50 are now fully vaccinated.

Dr. Madhi said South Africa could close mass vaccination centers and instead redouble efforts to search for the most vulnerable in church services and government offices that pay monthly pensions.

Katherine O’Brien, who heads WHO’s work on vaccines and vaccines, said the agency encourages countries to focus on their most vulnerable citizens rather than vaccinating a “random 70 percent of their populations”. Craving has always been “100 percent of healthcare workers, 100 percent of older adults, 100 percent of pregnant women, 100 percent of people who fall into these highest risk groups.”

Dr. O’Brien said that countries can of course make decisions about which health goal they want to prioritize, but limited resources should not be an obstacle to vaccination against coronavirus. “If countries want to do it, the world has enough resources to do it,” he said. “And that really has to be the North Star.”

Some public health experts said the 70 percent vaccine threshold would clearly not be reached by the original deadline, but it would be unwise and unethical to abandon that target over a longer time horizon. They expressed disappointment at the growing gap between wealthy countries that vaccinate young children and offer healthy adults a fourth dose of the vaccine, and regions where the majority of people still do not receive a single dose of vaccine.

“Why are we making this a single target for high-income countries and a single target for low-income countries?” Co-chairman of the African Union’s vaccine distribution program, Dr. Ayoade Alakija said.

He said that although many people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected, additional protection from high levels of vaccination coverage is still needed.

Modest vaccine coverage is “not considered a good enough level of protection in the UK, not a good enough level of protection in America. How about not aiming for the maximum, the maximum we can do? Aim at the sky and reach the top of the tree.”