Daily COVID Tracker: NCDC reports 49 cases, and vaccine inequity creates ‘two-track pandemic’

Nigeria on Monday recorded 49 cases of COVID-19. Here are five updates about the pandemic this Tuesday.

India to give adults free COVID shots

India says it will administer COVID-19 vaccine free to adults starting from June 21.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the federal government will take over the vaccination programme from the states.

Under the previous policy, the federal government gave free vaccines to the elderly and front-line workers, allowing states and private hospitals to administer doses for a fee to people between the age of 18 and 45.

“Whether it is the poor, the lower middle class, the middle class, or the upper-middle class, under the federal government programme, everyone will get free vaccines,” Modi said.

US to distribute 80 million COVID vaccine doses to other countries by end of July

Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, says 80 million COVID-19 vaccines will be shared with other countries between now and the end of July.

“We have 80 million vaccines that will be distributed, either working through COVAX, and with COVAX, or directly by the United States… between now and early July, so this is happening, starting to happen as we speak,” Blinken said on Monday.

“We want to make sure that anything we send out is safe and effective but it’s, it’s starting now, and it’s going to roll out over the coming days and weeks between now and the end of July.”

Nigeria reports 49 COVID cases

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says 49 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.

According to the agency’s update for June 7, 2021, the latest positive samples were recorded in five states.

States that reported new infections are Ondo (30), Lagos (15), Kaduna (2), Gombe (1) and Adamawa (1).

The NCDC says 94 patients were discharged on Monday after recovering from the infection.

With the new figure, a total of 163,190 persons have now recovered from the virus in Nigeria.

No new death was recorded on Monday, leaving the fatality toll at 2,117.

Since the index case in February 2020, a total of 166,816 coronavirus infections have been confirmed across the country — out of which 1,509 are active cases.

COVID-19 vaccine inequity creates ‘two-track pandemic’

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), on Monday renewed calls for COVID vaccine donations to poor countries.

Tedros says the inequality in COVID-19 vaccination between the rich and poor countries has created a “two-track pandemic”.

“Increasingly, we see a two-track pandemic,” Tedros said in a press conference.

“Six months since the first COVID-19 vaccines were administered, high-income countries have administered almost 44% of the world’s doses.

“Low-income countries have administered just 0.4%. The most frustrating thing about this statistic is that it hasn’t changed in months.”

UK to offer 25 to 29-year-olds COVID vaccines

The United Kingdom (UK) says people aged 25 to 29 will receive notification to book for their COVID vaccine from Tuesday.

Matt Hancock, health secretary, disclosed this while addressing House of Commons on Monday.

“I’m sure we’ve all been cheered by the images we’ve seen of so many eligible young people coming forward and lining up to get the jab, showing that enthusiasm for the jab is not just the preserve of older generations,” Hancock said.