Sir, – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has questioned the value of giving booster jabs to those who have been fully vaccinated when there are so many in the world who have no access to vaccines or only at crippling cost to themselves or their families.
Needing ICU treatment in hospital for Covid could easily require in excess of their annual income.
The following edited messages from a friend in Uganda who set up a primary school in Kampala might help us rethink our attitude to boosters until the rest of the world has been vaccinated: “We are totally dry. We have no hope for the school to open this year. We just recovered from Covid-19. We need to eat & drink, the situation is not good. It is from Covid to famine. Teachers and school proprietors have not been considered for two years. We have no option than to go begging on the street.”
There is no social security of any sort and hopelessly inadequate medical services.
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As we all know, until the world is vaccinated there is the real potential for a new and worse variant to appear.
Have we completely lost touch with our history of mission and support for those in countries so much worse off than we are?
– Yours, etc,
PATRICK DAVEY,
Shankill,
Dublin 18.