Mumbai, Sept 23 (UNI) Close on the heels of World Health Organisation’ (WHO) clarion call to the rich nations to stop hoarding COVID products and vaccines, OMAG also urged rich countries do the same, said DR I S Gilada, General secretary of OMAG here today.


Organized Medicine Academic Guild (OMAG), a federation of 15 professional associations of post-graduate doctors in India, has urged wealthy nations not to stockpile COVID products as it is not only prolonging the fight against the pandemic but also leading to failure of the global fight against the coronavirus in some parts of the world.

No rich nation can alone firewall itself from the COVID pandemic in this world of growing interdependence and globalisation. Not only did the coronavirus which originated from Wuhan, China, spread on every continent including Antarctica in a short span of time, but even the new Delta strain has spread to over 180 nations wreaking havoc, said Dr GIlada..

“The only possible way out is, never alone, but if we stand together as a global humanity, fully vaccinate everyone in a time-bound manner, thereby reduce severity of illness drastically, curtail transmission of infection, and hope for herd immunity to kick in leading us to the end of the pandemic era culminating it in to endemic,” stated Dr Gilada.

Rich nations are not only hoarding many times more doses than their population now, but they have been doing this even before any of the vaccines were even officially approved by the vaccine regulators and the WHO. In 2020, when research was then underway for the most promising vaccine candidates (and scientific verdict was not yet out on their efficacy), rich countries had pre-bought more doses than they needed, shunting the rest of the world backwards in the queue, he said.
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