The global death toll from Covid-19 exceeded five million on Monday, with the United States, Brazil and India the hardest hit countries, according to an independent count by Johns Hopkins University.
In total, more than 246 million infections have been registered since the pandemic began in early 2020.
The United States is the country with the highest death toll, with more than 745,800 deaths; followed by Brazil, above 607,800; and India with more than 458,000 deaths, according to data from the American university center.
In recent months, cases have rebounded in the United States with the particularly contagious delta variant, while the pace of vaccination has slowed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the growing disparity in access to vaccines as one of the main risks to control the pandemic.
Of the more than 6 billion doses administered globally, more than 80% have been in high- and middle-income countries, which together account for less than half of the world’s population, according to the agency.
“A World Fail”
For the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, this figure of more than five million deaths represents a global “failure”. “It would be a mistake to think that the pandemic is over. Restrictions have been eased in many places, but we have to combine vaccination with surveillance, for example with measures that have proven to be effective such as the use of masks or social distancing,” he said. Guterres in a statement.
“The five million deaths are a clear warning that we cannot lower our guard, that there are still saturated hospitals and exhausted health workers, while the risk continues that new variants spread and cost more lives,” added the Portuguese leader.
Guterres added that this “devastating” figure shows that “the world is failing, because while rich countries are administering third doses of anti-Covid vaccines, only 5% of the African population is vaccinated.”
The Secretary-General assured that misinformation, “vaccine nationalism” and a lack of global solidarity are allowing Covid-19 to continue to spread, for which he urged world leaders to increase donations and improve the global distribution of doses to deal with these problems.
The objective, he recalled, is to ensure that before the end of the year at least 40% of the population of all the countries on the planet is vaccinated and that this percentage rises to 70% by mid-2022.
“The best way to honor the five million lives lost is to make equal distribution of vaccines a reality, increasing our efforts and ensuring that vigilance is maximum, in order to defeat this virus,” added the head of United Nations.