Video shows suspect setting Toronto-area barbershop on fire
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
The newly-discovered Omicron variant has highlighted the unequal distribution of vaccines and the lack of vaccine accessibility in some of the most vulnerable groups in many lower-income countries across the globe.
Vaccine inequity has amplified the logistical burden, and highlighted the visible cracks in the global healthcare system.
Using data from the Government of Canada and the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, CTVNews.ca has created a series of charts illustrating the COVID-19 vaccine inequity and the challenges in its global distribution.
As of Oct. 28, 2021, only 6 per cent of the population in Africa has been fully vaccinated. In comparison, over 70 per cent of high-income countries such as Canada and the U.S. have already vaccinated more than 40 per cent of their people.
Wealthy countries have purchased far more doses than they need, while supply through COVAX, and bilateral deals have struggled. According to Duke Global Health Innovation Center, 44 per cent of COVID-19 doses have gone to wealthy nations.
Vaccine inequity has always been a concern for the leading agency, World Health Organization (WHO). In his opening remarks earlier this year, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesussaid, “Vaccine equity is the challenge of our time. And we are failing.”
To resolve the issue, WHO,Gavi - the Vaccine Alliance, United Nations Children International Fund (UNICEF), and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, (CEPI) joined hands to launch a program last year called COVAX to seek vaccine donations and address vaccine inequity. With the launch of the program, many developed countries raced to pledge their support, but data shows a lag in the promised shipment.
While the U.S. has pledged the greatest number of doses, it has managed to only ship 24 per cent of the committed doses as of Dec. 1, 2021. In comparison, Canada has shipped 18 per cent of the total pledged doses, according to data compiled by Duke Global Health Innovation Center.
Through COVAX,Canada has shipped over 8.3 million surplus vaccine doses and over 762,080 AstraZeneca doses through direct, bilateral arrangements with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The updated numbers by the Canadian government starting August this year show Uganda and Rwanda received the largest number of doses (Moderna) through COVAX.
The largest number of doses purchased per inhabitant has been from countries in high-income groups, according to the Launch and Scale Speedometer led by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center. Canada procured 11.41 doses per inhabitant, which is twice of what the U.S. obtained.
Besides the lack of supply to poor nations, making vaccines accessible to the communities come with its own set of challenges.
Even with the promised supplies, most countries are either ill-equipped or have an underfunded public health infrastructure.
Furthermore, short shelf lives and the high storage costs of vaccines have delayed the rate at which vaccination rates are monitored.
Recently, WHO noted that the distribution of vaccine donations through COVAX has been ad hoc. The African Vaccine Acquisition Trust created by the agency received more than 90 million doses through the program but due to “little notice and short shelf lives,” planning of vaccine campaigns had become “extremely challenging.”
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
A New Brunswick woman suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease that limits your lung capacity, is in need of a double lung transplant.
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
Quebec Premier François Legault reiterated that the pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University must be dismantled while police remain 'on the lookout for new developments.'
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.