The countries that manufactured the Coronavirus vaccine continue to vaccinate their citizens, amid the World Health Organization’s warning that not distributing it to poor countries is a "great moral failure", with talk of the high number of HIV infections in Arab countries.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said today, Monday, that the world stands on "the brink of catastrophic moral failure" if the rich countries exclude vaccines against the emerging corona virus, while the poorest countries suffer.

Ghebreyesus denounced the behavior of rich countries that apply the "me first" approach, and at the same time attacked vaccine manufacturers seeking approval from the regulatory authorities in rich countries instead of submitting their data to the WHO in order to give the green light to using the vaccine globally.

In a speech in Geneva during the opening of a meeting of the organization's executive council, Ghebreyesus said that promises of equal access worldwide to the emerging coronavirus vaccines face serious risks.

He explained that 39 million doses of the Corona vaccine have been given so far in at least 49 of the highest-income countries, and in the meantime, "only 25 doses were provided in one of the lowest-income countries, not 25 million, not 25 thousand, only 25."

Moral failure

"I will be very frank, the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure, and the price of this failure will be paid by lives and livelihoods in the poorest countries in the world," Ghebreyesus added.

He stressed that while some countries offer reassuring words about equal access to the vaccine, they are giving priority to their own deals with manufacturers, which leads to high prices and attempts to circumvent the waiting list.

He said 44 of those agreements had been signed in 2020 and at least 12 had been signed since the beginning of the year.

Ghebreyesus pointed out that "what exacerbates the situation is that the majority of manufacturers give priority to obtaining approval from the regulatory authorities in rich countries, where profits are the highest, instead of submitting complete files to the World Health Organization."

He believed that "this approach, which puts the individual interest first, not only leaves the poorest countries and the most vulnerable people in the world at risk, but also leads to the opposite result."

"Ultimately, this behavior will prolong the epidemic and prolong our suffering and the restrictions necessary to contain it, and the human and economic suffering," he added.

Millions of doses

According to news reports, more than 40 million doses of new anti-virus vaccines were given in at least 60 countries or regions around the world, in a race today led by the Israeli occupation state, which vaccinated 24.5% of its population, according to the French Press Agency count.

In terms of quantity, the United States leads the way, giving 12.28 million doses to 10.60 million people (3.2% of the population), ahead of China (more than 10 million doses).

In Europe, the UK gave 4.31 million doses to 3.86 million people (5.7% of the population).

In France, the vaccination campaign against the new Corona virus was expanded today, Monday, to include all people over the age of 75, while the epidemic has killed more than 70,000 people in the country.

The Minister of Health confirmed that the threshold for the vaccination of one million French will be "reached by the end of the month," while the slow pace of vaccination campaigns is under criticism, in addition to the announcement by "Pfizer-Biontech" laboratories that there will be some delay in the delivery of doses.

Also, the United Kingdom (more than 89 thousand deaths) will expand the vaccination campaign against the emerging corona virus to include people over the age of 70, at a time when it also begins imposing a quarantine on all arrivals to avoid the spread of new mutated versions of the virus.

Russia

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Tatyana Golikova, said today, Monday, that Russia plans to vaccinate more than 20 million against Covid-19 in the first quarter of this year.

She added that Russia - which has registered two vaccines to prevent the emerging corona virus - intends to register a third vaccine on February 16th.

Meanwhile, dozens of Muscovites stood in queues today, to receive the first dose of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine in a supermarket in front of the Kremlin headquarters in Red Square, where the doses were given to those waiting on a first-come, first-served basis.

Russia - which recorded the fourth highest number of cases of the disease in the world - began large-scale vaccination campaigns last month, starting with workers in key jobs, including medical workers and teachers, and made vaccination available to everyone today.

Today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed that he was infected with the Coronavirus at an unspecified earlier time.

China

The Chinese company, Sinovac Biotech, said today, Monday, that a clinical trial in Brazil showed that the effectiveness of its vaccine to prevent Covid-19 disease was about 20 percentage points higher than usual in a small group of patients who received two doses of the vaccine with a longer time difference.

A company spokesman said that the protection rate for 1394 participants received two doses of the Coronavac vaccine or a placebo vaccine, with a difference of 3 weeks, amounting to about 70%.

Last week, Brazilian researchers announced that the effectiveness of the vaccine is generally 50.4%, based on the results of more than 9,000 volunteers, most of whom received two doses with a difference of 14 days, as determined in the trial system.

China imposed a quarantine on 3 million additional people in the northeast of the country after discovering new HIV infections linked to a sales employee mixed with the elderly.

Arab countries

Today, Monday, Libya announced the registration of 33 deaths from the Corona virus, while Iraq recorded 9 deaths, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE recorded 6 deaths in each.

In Qatar, the Ministry of Health announced, in a statement, the registration of two deaths and 227 cases of coronavirus.

The ministry indicated that the total of injuries rose to 147,504, including 248 deaths, and 144 thousand and 15 recoveries.

As of Monday afternoon, the number of Corona patients in the world exceeded 95 million and 566 thousand, of whom more than two million and 41 thousand died, and more than 68 million and 279 thousand recovered, according to the World Meter website.

The United States is the country most affected by the epidemic, with 397,600 deaths, followed by Brazil with 209,847, India with 152,419,419, Mexico with 140,404, and the United Kingdom with 89,261.