By Elishya Perera
Washington, USA (CWBN)_ According to a statement issued by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the UN aims to stockpile 520 million syringes by the end of this year, as part of a larger plan of acquiring 1 billion syringes by 2021, in order to ensure rapid, safe and efficient delivery of the eventual COVID-19 vaccine.
These 1 billion syringes will be in addition to the 620 million syringes that UNICEF will purchase for other vaccination programmes against other diseases such as measles, typhoid and more.
“Vaccinating the world against COVID-19 will be one of the largest mass undertakings in human history, and we will need to move as quickly as the vaccines can be produced,” Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, said. “In order to move fast later, we must move fast now”.
UNICEF is already the largest single vaccine buyer in the world, providing vaccines for almost half of the world’s children, and procures more than 2 billion doses of vaccines annually, for routine immunization and outbreak response, on behalf of nearly 100 countries.
Besides syringes, UNICEF also intends to buy 5 million safety boxes that are used to dispose used syringes and needles in a safe manner, thus avoiding injuries and blood borne diseases.
Injection equipment such as syringes and safety boxes have a shelf life of five years, and are shipped by sea. Vaccines, on the other hand, are transported more quickly by air freight, since they are heat-sensitive.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 40 million and more than 1.1 million deaths have been recorded across the globe. The WHO says that 42 vaccine candidates are currently being tested on humans, of which, 10 have reached the third and final stage, which involves mass testing.
Edited By Chathushka Perera
