'The first tool that we have is the vaccine.' 9News
, mitigation measures and human behaviour. But even if the virus is never stamped out, immunity will improve and the world will eventually be able to live with COVID.
The problem? Even after 20 months, those tools are not being put to best use. "This is the major issue: There was never a plan, there still isn't a plan at a global level," said Andrea Taylor, assistant director of programs at the Duke Global Health Institute. "The first tool that we have is the vaccine," says Roberto Burioni, a professor of microbiology and virology at San Raffaele University in Milan, a high-profile commentator on Italy's pandemic response.
"What we should achieve is widespread immunisation," said Burioni. "One possible scenario is that, if we are able to vaccinate a huge majority of people, this virus will circulate but will not do much damage." "We don't know how many boosters we will need, but this is a problem of a logistic and an economic nature," Burioni added.But the world has had ample evidence that the COVID-19 will remain a threat anywhere until it's under control everywhere — and experts warn there is dramatic action needed to achieve that goal.
The potential consequences of that disparity are obvious: New, globally problematic variants of the virus have all been first detected in places that experienced large, uncontrolled outbreaks where vaccine coverage was low — Alpha in the UK last December, Delta in India in February, and Omicron in sub-Saharan Africa.
Head, who has published research on vaccine supply in Ghana in the past year, added that when vaccines do arrive through COVAX, they have often been close to their expiry date, and were not accompanied by the necessary freezers or equipment to transport them throughout their destination countries. And developed nations should lead by example, too. Head said participants in his Ghanian study "were seeing how the Western world had handled the AstraZeneca vaccine," which is the shot that COVAX most relies on but which suffered several false starts during its rollout in Europe. This included a number of countries suspending the rollout of AstraZeneca shots in March over blood clot concerns.
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