Global cases of Covid-19 are on the decline, but the uneven distribution of life-saving vaccines could prolong the global economic recovery and leave developing countries even further behind, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
There were 3.7 million new global coronavirus cases reported during the week ending January 31, a 13% decrease compared to the previous week, according to the latest WHO status report. Deaths from Covid-19, which delay new cases by a few weeks, fell modestly by 1% over the week.
This is welcome news, considering that global cases were expected to violate 5.5 million cases per week, but more than 3 million new infections “are still a terrible amount of people,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, director executive of the WHO health emergency program.
“The rain has subsided, but the sun has not yet come out,” Ryan said during a live question and answer session at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
Health experts have warned that new highly infectious variants of the virus, first identified in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, could add fuel to already intense outbreaks in countries around the world.
A faster-spreading virus can lead to more infections, would eventually cause more hospitalizations and deaths if it spreads out of control. But even in areas where the variants have emerged, cases are declining, said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonoses unit.
In the United Kingdom, which identified variant B.1.1.7 in December, cases fell by 31% compared to the previous week, according to the WHO report. Similarly, in South Africa, which also discovered a similar variant called B.1.351 last year, cases decreased by 44%, the report said.
“This is important because people are afraid when they hear mutations and mutants and variants,” said Kerkhove. “We cannot let our guard down. We cannot let down.”
The emergence of new variants of the coronavirus came as no surprise to scientists, as it is normal for viruses to mutate as they spread. Experts are concerned that some of the strains, specifically variant B.1.351 found in South Africa, may pose a risk to the effectiveness of vaccines and therapies currently available.
Pharmaceutical companies say their vaccines must still work against the new variants, but health experts emphasize that it is important to stem the spread of the virus to prevent further mutations while countries distribute the initial supply of Covid-19 vaccines.
However, not all countries have equal access to life-saving drugs.
Of the countries that have started distributing doses to their residents, most of them are in higher-income countries that have claimed to supply bottles in advance through their own supply agreements, warned WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
This is a problem because vaccines will allow countries to reopen their economies without risking an increase in hospitalizations and deaths from the virus, Ryan said on Wednesday. WHO has advocated for countries to sign COVAX, a global alliance that co-directs and aims to provide coronavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.
The program expects to deliver 2.3 billion doses by the end of this year. Earlier on Wednesday, COVAX officials announced that they have allocated at least 330 million doses so far to the poorest countries, which they hope to start delivering in late February or early March. These first doses would serve to vaccinate those most at risk, such as health professionals.
Ryan said that this would allow countries to reopen their economies without having to worry about adding more tension to their hospital systems, but that will not be possible until “we can deliver the minimum number of vaccine doses to all countries”.
“If we want our societies to be open, if we want to be on the journey to normalization and normalization in the way we live, we have to be fair about the way we distribute the means to live normally,” said Ryan. “At the moment, the unequal distribution of vaccines means that not all societies will have the same chance to return to the Internet and that is simply not fair.”
– Holly Ellyatt and Reuters from CNBC contributed to this report.