IFRC URGES RICH COUNTRIES TO DONATE VACCINES TO SOUTHEAST ASIA AS DEATH RATES SOAR

On Wednesday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) urged wealthy countries to increase vaccine sharing with Southeast Asia, which has recently experienced the world’s highest coronavirus mortality rates due to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta strain.

According to John Hopkins University, 38,552 COVID-19 fatalities have been reported in Southeastern Asia in the last two weeks, which is twice as many as in North America.

While certain Western countries have fully vaccinated over half of their populations 60% in the UK and 64% in Canada and Spain Southeast Asian states are falling significantly behind behind.

Malaysia has fully vaccinated 34% of its citizens, Indonesia and Philippines around 11%, and Vietnam less than 2%, the organization said.

“In the short-term, we need much greater efforts by richer countries to urgently share their millions of excess vaccine doses with countries in Southeast Asia. We also need vaccine companies and governments to share technology and scale up production,” Alexander Matheou, IFRC Asia Pacific Director, was quoted as saying by the statement.

The following weeks will be critical in the fight against coronavirus strains, which can only be won by ramping up vaccines, treatment, and testing, according to the organization, which also recommended that at least 70% of individuals in the region be vaccinated to stem the outbreak.

Booster shots

Last month, the World Health Organization called on wealthy nations to stop the distribution of Covid-19 booster shots, citing vaccine inequity around the world.

The agency said the halt should last at least two months, to give the world a chance to meet the director-general’s goal of vaccinating 10% of the population of every country by the end of September.