Geneva (AFP)

A virus that circulates faster than vaccines, insufficient G7 promises, poor international financial support ... WHO called on Monday for great solidarity to eradicate the pandemic.

At their summit this weekend in England, the leaders of the G7 announced the donation of 1 billion doses - of 870 million doses to which are added the commitments made since February - either in kind or in the form of financial assistance to the Covax international distribution system.

"We need more, and faster. More than 10,000 people die every day. (...) These communities need vaccines, and they need them now, not next year!"

hammered the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a press conference.

"Right now, the virus is moving faster than the global distribution of vaccines," he lamented.

If a part of the population of the rich countries returns to a normal life thanks to vaccination, progress is still fragile in the less privileged countries, largely deprived of serums.

Covax delivered more than 85 million doses to 131 countries and territories as of June 14, far fewer than expected.

- Not one but eleven billion -

NGOs and WHO partners are also concerned.

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"We need more clarity on the actual number of doses given and the exact time it will take for their promises to materialize," MSF's Yuanqiong Hu told AFP.

WHO wants at least 70% of the world's population to be vaccinated by the next G7 meeting in Germany next year.

"To achieve this, we need eleven billion doses," argued Dr Tedros.

According to Helen Clark, who co-chairs an expert panel to assess global pandemic management, high-income countries have set aside 4.3 billion doses.

Even with two doses per person, "there are still two billion doses to redistribute," said the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, just before the G7 summit.

- Beyond the doses -

The sharing of doses is however only one of the axes of the plan of the health battle of the G7.

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The Summit outcome document includes a series of commitments to prevent another pandemic.

It will be about reducing the time to develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostics, with the hope that the world will be ready in less than a hundred days to deal with sudden illness.

The other component will focus on strengthening health surveillance and implementing WHO reform to make it more powerful.

An arduous objective without China, which does not appreciate the G7 which it has described as a "clique" formed by Washington.

Especially since decisions at the WHO tend to be taken by consensus.

Ilona Kickbusch, founder of the Global Health Center of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, is also skeptical of the G7's stated desire to strengthen the UN agency: "I will believe (this) point when the contributions at WHO will be increased ".

For Oxfam, it is above all necessary to resolve the issue of the suspension of patents on vaccines, in order to speed up their production.

A finding shared by Human Rights Watch (HRW), while negotiations on the subject have just been launched at the World Trade Organization (WTO) after months of discussions.

As HRW's Aruna Kashyap told AFP, "focusing on vaccines and donating to charity is not enough. The failure of the G7 to unequivocally support a temporary waiver of global intellectual property rules is a murderous status quo ".

- 1% of military defense spending -

For WHO and its partners, the issue of funds is also crucial to eradicate the pandemic.

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More than 16 billion dollars (13.2 billion euros) are still needed this year to finance the international mechanism responsible for accelerating access to tools to fight against Covid (ACT Accelerator), and in particular to support the distribution of treatments, oxygen, testing and protective equipment.

"$ 16 billion is less than 1% of annual military defense spending around the world. We can certainly afford to spend 1% of that to save lives and end this pandemic," said the program director. of WHO health emergencies, Michael Ryan, at the press conference.

© 2021 AFP