Evening Standard Comment: We are failing the world’s poor on Covid vaccination

Christian Adams
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Today, the Prime Minister met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta as part of a landmark Global Education Summit in London this week.

The pandemic has caused huge disruption to education. At its peak, 1.3 billion children were removed from school. The most disadvantaged will drop out permanently, which could lead to a lost generation.

The UK is reportedly set to provide Kenya with 800,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. This is a hugely welcome development but represents only a drop in the ocean given the crisis.

According to Our World In Data, just 1.2 per cent of Kenya’s population has been fully vaccinated. And the country is not alone in Africa in having jabbed so few.

Rich countries must up their game. We must support work to boost medicines and vaccine manufacturing in Africa, which imports 95 per cent of all medicines. Furthermore, suspending patents sounds good, but without expertise sharing, it will do little to bring supply to places in real need.

Africa is home to 1.3 billion people, yet less than two per cent of its population is fully vaccinated. This is a moral failing. We can celebrate the miracle of vaccines but far too many are being left defenceless.

This must urgently change or it will be a stain on us all.

Daily cartoon

1/30

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in