Unfortunately, in November a new variant of the coronavirus, with the name of the Greek letter omicron, it became a reason for global concern, since it seemed to spread much faster than the Delta dominant strain.The constant WARNINGS of the UN that the new mutations were inevitable and the failure of the international community to guarantee the vaccination of all countries, and not only that of the citizens of the rich nations had been clearly ignored.
In a press conference in mid -December, the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that omicron was "spreading at a pace that we had not seen in any of the previous variants"."Surely, we have already realized that we underestimate this virus at our risk and risk," he said.
ONU Mexico/Alexis AubinEscenas de cotidianidad en la Ciudad de México durante la pandemia de coronavirus.A moral failure
In January, António Guterres, general secretary of the United Nations, lamented the self-destructive phenomenon of the "nationalist vaccination fever", and recriminated to governments the lack of solidarity, reminding them that no country would be airy of the COVID-19 alone in solo.
WHO director in Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, condemned the "hoarding of vaccines" that only prolongs and delays the recovery of the continent."It is deeply unfair that Africans in a situation of greater vulnerability are forced to wait for vaccines while the smaller groups of rich countries are safe," he recriminated.
At the same time, the Health Agency propitiously warned that the longer it would take to disregard the propagation of COVID-19, the greater the risk of new and more resistant variants to vaccines..Tedros described the unequal distribution of "catastrophic moral failure", adding that "the price of this ruling would be charged lives and means of subsistence in the poorest countries in the world".
As the months passed, the agency persisted in its message.In July, with the appearance of the Delta variant, which became the dominant form of COVID-19, the gloomy milestone of four million deaths attributed to the virus was fulfilled-it continues that four months later it reached five million-.Tedros then indicated that the variants of the virus were winning the race against vaccines "due to their inequitable production and distribution".
OPS/Karen González AbrilUna mujer indígena recibe la vacuna contra el COVID-19 en Colombia.COVAX: A historical world effort
To help the most vulnerable, WHO headed the Covax initiative, the fastest, coordinated and successful world effort of history to fight a disease.
Financed by the richest countries and private donors, with a collection of more than 2000 million dollars, COVAX launched during the first months of the pandemic to ensure that people living in the poorest countries will not be left withoutVaccines when these will reach the market.
The deployment of vaccines in developing countries through this mechanism began with Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in March.Yemen, a country destroyed by war and in a devastating economic situation, received its first lot of vaccines in the same month.Colombia, meanwhile, became the first country of the Americas to receive Covax vaccines.In April, vaccine lots had been sent to more than one hundred countries thanks to this project.
However, the problem of the lack of an equitable distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 is far from being resolved: WHO announced on September 14 that more than 57 billion doses of vaccines had been administered on the world, butthat only 2% had gone to Africans.
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Education, mental health, reproduction services
In addition to directly affecting the health of millions of people in the world, pandemic has had many repercussions in other areas, such as the treatment of other diseases, education or mental health.
The diagnosis and treatment of cancer has seriously suffered the consequences in almost half of the countries;More than one million people have not been able to receive essential medical attention against tuberculosis;The increase in inequalities has prevented the inhabitants of the poorest countries from accessing HIV-AIDS services;and reproduction assistance has been altered for millions of women.
UN agencies believe that, only in southern Asia, serious interruptions in health services due to Covid-19 pandemic may have caused 239.000 additional children's and maternal deaths last year;In Yemen the impact is even more terrible: a woman dies in childbirth every two hours.
© UNICEF/Santiago ArcosUna maestra lleva a cabo una clase de pintura durante la pandemia para niños de un barrio desfavorecido de Guayaquil, Ecuador.A high price for children
As for mental health, the last year has been devastating worldwide, but the toll has been particularly high for children and young people.The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed in March that children now live a "new devastating and distorted normality", and that COVID-19 is making a practically all indicators of progress related to childhood.
Child poverty rates have increased around 15% in developing countries and another 140 million children from these countries live below the poverty threshold.
As for education, the effects were catastrophic.A total of 168 million schoolchildren worldwide lost almost a year of classes since the beginning of the pandemic, and more than one in three could not access distance teaching.
The closure of schools must be the last resort, UNICEF reiterated for the second year.Its director, Henrietta Fore, said in January that "no effort should be skimmed" to keep children at school."The children's ability to read, write and perform basic mathematical operations has deteriorated, and the skills they need to get ahead in the 21st century economy have decreased," he said.
In August, after the summer holidays, UNICEF and the WHO issued recommendations for a safe return to the classrooms, such as the inclusion of school staff in the national vaccination plans against the coronavirus and the immunization of all children from 12years.
OMS/Blink Media/Hannah ReyesUna chica recibe la vacuna contra el COVID-19 en Filipinas, con una camiseta con el mensaje "Derrotar el COVID-19"COVID-19 is not an isolated disaster
The UN made several calls to greater equity in the distribution of vaccines and insisted on several occasions on the need for a new way of responding to future pandemics, expressing the patent failure of the international response to COVID-19.
The World Health Organization convened a series of meetings in which scientists and political authorities participated, and in May the creation of an International Center for Pandemics Control in Berlin was announced, with the aim of guaranteeing a better preparation and transparency inThe fight against possible future world sanitary threats.
In July, the G20 Group, formed by the world's greatest economies, published an independent report on preparation against a pandemic, in which it was concluded that world health security is dangerously inflated.
The group's co-chair, the Singapurese Minister Tharman Shanmugratnam, said that COVID-19 was not an isolated catastrophe, and that the financing deficit shows that "as a consequence we are vulnerable to a Covid-19 pandemic that extends, with new wavesthat affect all countries, in addition to the risk of future pandemics ".
Fortunately, the year ends with a positive note: in an unusual special session of the World Health Assembly of WHO held at the end of November, countries agreed to prepare a new world agreement on Pandemias prevention.
The WHO director, Dr. Tedros, said that, although there is a lot of work to be done, the agreement is the "reason for celebration and hope that we all need".