Health Workers Need to Be at the Center of Our Global Vaccine Rollout

By Polly Dunford, President and Chief Executive Officer, IntraHealth InternationalJune 16, 2021The long-awaited plan from the US for sharing COVID-19 vaccines with countries that need them is an important step forward—both in US leadership and in our global response to COVID-19. I hope it inspires other countries to share more doses faster.  As the Group of 7 (G7) meeting unfolded in Cornwall, UK, last week, I was eager for these world leaders to take the plan even further, producing a roadmap for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout—our most extensive and ambitious vaccine effort in history. Here at IntraHealth International, we’re especially eager to see progress toward a detailed, multicountry plan to invest in and protect the only people in the world who can make the vaccine rollout happen: health workers.Unfortunately, the G7 didn’t go far enough.  They did reaffirm their commitment to equitable vaccine distribution, including partnering with COVAX to share vaccines among the countries that need them. But we still don’t have a global roadmap to vaccinate the world, including a comprehensive approach to health care access and delivery that would help us achieve at least 70% coverage in all countries.  And there are some aspects of the US plan that trouble me—for example, it’s diverting&n...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: COVID-19 Health workforce development 2021 Year of the Health and Care Worker Health Workers Source Type: news