DHAKA, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Instant action is needed by governments and pharmaceutical companies to fix a COVID-19 vaccine supply crisis in Asia as countries run out of stocks while suffering grim record daily death tolls, a global humanitarian organization said Friday.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Nepal and Bangladesh have run out of vaccines while India and Indonesia have both vaccinated around 3 percent of their populations.
Apart from this, it said the Philippines has only fully vaccinated around 0.6 percent.
A majority of countries in Asia are struggling with vaccine shortage while India, Nepal, Malaysia and the Philippines all have hospitals full to the brim with COVID-19 patients, said IFRC in a statement.
Against this backdrop, Alexander Matheou, Asia Pacific Director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said, "Sharing vaccine doses between countries and via COVAX is now the only option that can address the emergency vaccine shortage in these critical, coming months."
According to IFRC, many richer countries have purchased enough COVID-19 vaccines to immunize every person several times over while most countries in Asia only have a fraction of the lifesaving vaccines needed.
"We welcome that richer countries are talking about shipping excess vaccine stocks to Asia and other parts of the world, but we need to see this talk turned into lightning speed action," said Matheou.
He said, "If pharmaceutical companies and governments work together to enable the manufacture and supply of COVID-19 vaccines everywhere they are needed, we can look forward to a much better supply of vaccines towards the end of this year. We need to share vaccines now to prevent an even worse catastrophe emerging across Asia in the coming weeks and months."
The IFRC said it is seeking vital funding for its global emergency COVID-19 appeal, with around 50 percent of the appeal covered so far.
The funds are crucial to support the lifesaving actions of the IFRC and member Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies around the world, said the statement. Enditem
