The WHO says our biggest barrier in ending the pandemic is the lack of sharing resources.
On June 7, the WHO said that the biggest barrier to ending the pandemic is the ability to share resources with other countries. The WHO plans to break this barrier by sharing access to COVID-19 technology with countries that are struggling to decrease in COVID-19 cases.
During the briefing, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the US has seen a drop every week in cases for six weeks straight now. The death rate is continuing to lower, and the public is continuing to get vaccinated. However, this is not the case for other countries.
Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus discussed how other countries are lacking in vaccines, and how their case numbers are not dropping as rapidly as ours are. However, the WHO is looking to solve this problem with the help of the African Union’s partnership for African vaccine manufacturing.
“I hope that some manufacturing sites will be identified and [are] at least close to producing vaccines by the end of this year,” said Dr. Ghebreyesus. “Boosting manufacturing does not happen overnight, but the sooner we invest, the sooner production can start at the World Health Assembly Member States.”
For now, the WHO has expressed interest in establishing a “transfer hub” to increase the production of the COVID vaccine in other countries. According to Dr. Ghebreyesus, “We have received expressions of interest from a number of companies interested in transferring their technology, and from a number of countries wanting to receive the technology and set up production plants.”
Tedros explained how the only way we can stop this pandemic is by learning how to share our resources. This is not a problem concerning one country, but a problem concerning all countries. Now is the time to help each other in any way we can, so that we can rid of the pandemic.