Variants may be a result of Vaccine Inequity

 Global health adviser and a lecturer at teaching fellow at University College London’s School of Pharmacy,  Oksana Pyzik, says, vaccine inequality will likely lead to more coronavirus variants as the pandemic is prolonged, and that a more coordinated international approach towards “vaccine distribution is needed.” 

“The World Health Organization has been warning repeatedly for months on end … that if vaccine inequity continues, if we continue to have high income countries hoarding vaccines such that entire continents are left with very limited access to vaccines, this will inevitably lead to a (more powerful) virus, a potentially vaccine-resistant virus,” she said.

Pyzik said that less than 3.5 percent of people across the continent of Africa have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

“So only focusing on high income regions has been a short term view of the issue, and we have also taken for granted that Delta is the worst variant that we could come across and now we have evidence that points otherwise – of course it is early days, but what scientists have come across is deeply worrying.”

Aljazeera/Shakirat Sadiq