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home / 世界杯决赛2022

adam: omicron's spread helps highlight the gross inequity of vaccine distribution

i got my booster shot the other day, as we are all requ...

by mohammed adam
published dec 23, 2021
read time 3 minute read
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read time 3 minute read
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a health care worker administers the covid-19 vaccine to a young mother in johannesburg, south africa, december 04, 2021. reuters/sumaya hisham
i got my booster shot the other day, as we are all required to do to protect ourselves and everyone around us. it was necessary in the face of the raging inferno called omicron, but i am feeling guilty about it.
as i took the jab, i thought: “here am i getting a third shot of the vaccine when millions of people around the world, particularly africa, haven’t even got one shot.” how privileged is that?

what made the situation particularly difficult is i know that millions of people in my native ghana are yet to get a first shot. i’ve been tracking vaccination rates in the country because i was considering a trip early in the new year to visit family. the statistics are damning . as of mid-december, close to 10 per cent of the population in ghana have had one shot. only seven per cent are fully vaccinated. the main problem is lack of vaccines.

some of my family members, and friends i was certain to see on a visit, are fully vaccinated. some are not. it’s not the ideal situation for a visit because you can’t be sure what you are getting yourself into. and then, out of the blue, the omicron variant hit, prompting federal government advice to canadians to postpone non-essential travel.
of course, i’m not going anywhere soon. but the situation brought vividly home the gross inequity of vaccine distribution around the world. the world health organization (who) had set a very modest target for 10 per cent of africa’s population to be fully vaccinated by the end of september, but even that low mark has not been met.
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at the time of writing in mid-december, only seven per cent of africa’s population is fully vaccinated. only one-in-four health workers are vaccinated. in nigeria, africa’s most populous country, with more than 200 million people, only about three percent are fully vaccinated. imagine that, in the age of fast transatlantic travel. in south africa, which first reported omicron, 25 per cent are fully vaccinated. comparatively, 77 per cent in canada are fully vaccinated, while in the u.s., the figure is 61 per cent. in the european union, 67 per cent are fully vaxxed, according to various tracking agencies .

there are numerous reasons for the paucity of vaccines in developing countries, but the critical one is the reluctance of wealthy nations to share. covax , the global initiative put together to purchase and distribute vaccines to the developing world, was supposed to distribute two billion doses of vaccines by the end of 2021. it has received only 400 million.

make no mistake, we should be grateful to live in a country where, when disaster strikes, the government has the resources and the capacity to protect its citizens. but wealthy nations such as canada should not believe that they are safe because they have abundant supply of vaccines for their citizens. what happens in far-off corners of the world matters. we thought we had turned the corner and were looking forward, at last, to a wonderful christmas. then omicron struck and took us back to square one. the variant’s emergence should teach us that no country is safe until the rest of the world is safe. there is no other way.
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it is understandable that governments would prioritize the safety of their own citizens above all else, but they cannot prevent the covid-19 onslaught by simply closing borders. the virus found its way from wuhan to the world. omicron found its way from wherever — whether it’s south africa or somewhere else — to our shores. borders are no match for covid-19. the best way to fight the pandemic is not just to ensure the safety of individual countries, but all the world. it may be the cliché of the moment, but “no one is safe until everyone is safe,” is a veritable truth. until we heal the world, we will remain vulnerable. wealthy nations must develop the will to share vaccines.
mohammed adam is an ottawa journalist and commentator. reach him at nylamiles48@gmail.com

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