Mexico City-In the past few weeks, people in the United Kingdom and the United States have begun to feel at ease about their vaccinations Coronavirus disease -But throughout Latin America, Africa and most of Asia, the news was full of resignation and anger.

For many people in developing countries, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

After rich countries have retained enough doses to vaccinate their populations several times, these countries are struggling to obtain the long-awaited vaccine.

Martha Delgado, a Mexican official in charge of negotiating vaccine contracts in the country, told BuzzFeed News: “International solidarity needs growth.” She warned the concerns of developing countries as a whole, and she warned that unless everyone can Use this vaccine, otherwise the global pandemic will be endless. She hopes that the United States and other Western countries will think beyond their own borders and immediate needs. She said: “No one will be safe until everyone is vaccinated.”

In Canada, for example, the number of vaccines ordered is at least four times the number of vaccines required for its 38 million citizens. The UK has enough security to cover nearly three times its population. The European Union and the United States can use the number of vaccines they retain to immunize almost all residents twice.At the same time, almost A quarter of the global population According to the medical journal BMJ, the vaccine will not be available until at least 2022.

So far, bookings in some of the poorer countries hardest hit by the virus can cover only a small part of the population.According to a report in the New York Times, Peru suffered from severe hypoxia at the beginning of this year, leaving the country marginalized; while in El Salvador, more than a quarter of its people are below the poverty line, and their scheduled dose is less than half of the population. analysis.

A country with a predetermined order but no political influence or economic power will wait longer than a large country. The Mexican government said it has signed contracts with multiple pharmaceutical companies to vaccinate 116 million people out of 126 million citizens against COVID-19.

After Delgado told the BBC “at least in Mexico, we have the money to buy vaccines”, Xavier Tello, a health policy expert based in Mexico City, said, Retweeted An interview-related post said: “I can spend money to buy myself a Tesla; but if someone else has already paid, I may have to be on the waiting list.”

Many people in Mexico say that the country cannot wait longer. On the surface, the country’s death toll ranks fourth, second only to the United States, Brazil and India, but the official death toll is 118,598, which may be much lower than the actual number of casualties. At least 60,000 more”excessiveDuring 2020, the number of other deaths.

Medical staff in Mexico say they have reached their limits due to the continuing shortage of personal protective equipment, exhaustion and grief.More than 2,250 doctors, nurses and medical staff died, According to government figures.Mexico’s population is almost three times that of Mexico 1,500 medical staff Died in the United States.

Who vaccinated how many vaccines and when, triggered unprecedented ethical controversy. Should the government give priority to its citizens? Should the first batch of vaccines be allocated to a certain percentage of the population of each country? Before assigning high-risk groups to people without comorbidities, should they be given the initial dose?

Arthur Caplan, head of the Department of Medical Ethics at New York University School of Medicine, said that he partially defended the first school of thought, the vaccine nationalist. Affordable countries should take care of themselves first and “add a little more insurance”, in case the current vaccines can only provide immunity for a limited time and require booster immunizations in the near future.

However, in making a more ethical decision, Kaplan said that once a state vaccinates its health care workers, the elderly, and people with pre-existing diseases, it should first vaccinate the young and the younger population. Get the same vaccine in other countries/regions. People at risk.

COVID-19 has caused so much damage worldwide that fairness is not part of the decision-making when it comes to the distribution of vaccines among countries.

Kaplan told BuzzFeed News: “The situation in rich countries is very bad, and they didn’t think about it.”

Although the second option—distributing vaccines to equal numbers of people in each country—seems fairer, it may eventually fail. Argentine medical ethics expert Ignacio Mastroleo section The World Health Organization’s ethics and COVID-19 expert group pointed out that, for example, providing the same amount of vaccine to Peru and Poland will not take into account that the virus killed more than 11,600 people (their populations) in the former than in the latter. 32 million and 38 million).

Mastrorio said that this choice is “insensitive to the needs of the people”, adding that Peru’s poverty rate is 10 times that of Poland.

Mastroleo said that if there is a silver lining, it is that, unlike the 2009 swine flu pandemic, international organizations are working to support the equality of this vaccination. A mechanism co-founded by the World Health Organization is called COVAX, a global vaccine library that poor countries will obtain. But the plan can only meet the needs of less than 20% of the population in 92 low- and middle-income countries.

Not only between countries, but also within countries, there may be unequal access to vaccines, leaving millions of vulnerable people unable to resist the virus.On Monday, Colombian President Iván Duque (Iván Duque) Interview And Blu Radio has no plans to vaccinate undocumented people. He said that if the country does so, it may “stigmatize” Colombian immigrants. Currently, there are 1.7 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, and about 55% of them have no citizenship. Most of them fled the economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

Delgado said that by the end of 2021 or even later, the relief of millions of people may not be realized, when countries that have accumulated excess vaccines either sell it or donate it to poorer states.

“This is the wrong strategy,” Delgado said. When people stop “searching for their own salvation,” relief will appear more quickly in all parts of the world.