The world’s gaze is directed towards Africa, the region of origin of omicron, the new variant of Covid-19.
Some countries have decided to close their borders to African citizens from countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Mozambique, territories in which cases of Covid-19 with the omicron variant have appeared.
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, asks that they not be isolated or blamed for the spread of the virus with the new variant. “The people of Africa cannot be blamed for the immorally low level of vaccination available on the continent.”
The UN is right.
Only three out of every 100 people have been fully vaccinated in the poorest countries, according to the University of Oxford, despite the fact that vaccines have been in existence for almost a year. In Africa, the figure is 7%, although there are countries where practically no one has been vaccinated, such as Burundi (0.0025%) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (0.06%), published El País (November 28).
In the United States and the European Union, the percentage of people vaccinated is 69% and 70%, respectively (Our World in Data).
The Covax mechanism for the immunization of countries with lower income has only managed to finance 433 of the 2 billion doses that should cover the complete vaccination of 20% of the world’s population.
Cameroonian virologist John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was not wrong last March when he predicted that restrictions on travel from Africa would come because “it would become the continent of Covid-19 ” (The country).
We have been wrong to think that a walled world with physical borders is the solution to prevent the spread of the virus. Virologist Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi, from the WHO office in the Republic of Congo reminds us that “as long as we continue with such low vaccination coverage, we will provide the possibility for the variants to spread. Africa needs vaccines ”.
Official figures on the impact of Covid-19 in Africa reveal that it does not exceed 9 million infections and reaches 223,000 deaths, numbers considered low for the size of its total population, although it is known that the virus has circulated much more than that the statistics reveal.
The pedagogy that the passage of Covid-19 has left us around the world is broad and must be understood. If we do not want unpleasant surprises through new variants, it is best for regions like Africa to advance in the vaccination rate.
Vaccination has proven highly effective in avoiding the most dangerous phase of the virus, but contagion continues to depend on individual behavior and the use of health protection measures.
The virus has shown that planet Earth is small and has no borders.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx