Global health leaders are warning that new cases of the highly infectious Omicron variant continue to climb in undervaccinated parts of the world. Only about 62% of the world’s population has received at least one shot, and the divide between the rich and poor regions remains vast. This is World Health Organization Emergencies Director Mike Ryan speaking virtually at the World Economic Forum last week.
DR. MICHAEL RYAN: If we look at in Africa, in our African regional office states, only 7%. So the reality is that the world is moving towards a 70% goal; the problem is we are leaving huge swathes of the world behind.
2022 must be the year that we completely tip the balance in favor of increased vaccinations in the developing world, especially in Africa. As we speak, just about 10% of the population in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people, have been fully immunized. I think we have a gap and a journey to get to the 70% target which the WHO has established. This is the year we must vaccinate at scale and at speed, if we have to defeat the emergence of new variants. We saw what Omicron did. Omicron taught us a lesson that any threat anywhere in the world is a threat everywhere in the world. So we really have to scale up vaccination using all the assets that we have and in a more deliberate manner, with
— source democracynow.org | Jan 26, 2022