Independent panel says wealthy nations "far from targets" on COVID-19 vaccine donations

Residents wait to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Aug. 3, 2021. (Photo by Herman Emmanuel/Xinhua)

"Vaccine inequity is a key factor in the wave of death we are seeing across Africa, Asia and Latin America," said Helen Clark, the co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR).

CAIRO, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Wealthy countries have not done enough to transfer COVID-19 vaccines to developing nations, according to a recent Al Jazeera report which quoted an independent panel monitoring the world's response to the pandemic as saying.

In May, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), established by the World Health Organization, called for the reallocation of one billion doses of vaccines from high-income nations with adequate coverage to low- and middle-income countries by September, with another billion by the middle of 2022.

A local resident receives a dose of COVID-19 vaccine on a mobile vaccination bus on Carey Island of Selangor State, Malaysia, July 25, 2021. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

But the world is "far from meeting those targets," Helen Clark, the co-chair of the IPPPR, told the United Nations General Assembly in a recent briefing. "Vaccine inequity is a key factor in the wave of death we are seeing across Africa, Asia and Latin America," she added.

According to the IPPPR, there was an urgent need to overhaul the way vaccines and treatments were developed. In its May report, the penal said a "toxic cocktail" of dithering and poor coordination meant the warning signs had gone unheeded and politicians had failed to learn from the past.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the other co-chair of the IPPPR who led Liberia during the Ebola crisis from 2014 to 2016, called for "a stronger international system for pandemic preparedness and response that understands the threats, is alert, and is poised to take collective action."