in hong kong and that's not a crowd that size a crackdown on dissent in the chinese territory continues to escalate hong kong police have arrested another 11 people on suspicion of helping activists in an attempt to flee to taiwan just over a week ago authorities rounded up 53 pro-democracy politicians and activists. showing i'm fully battle with the headlines on al-jazeera donald trump has become the 1st us president to be impeached twice the house of representatives has charged him with inciting an interaction over his repeated questioning of election results which included a speech he gave to supporters before they overran the capitol building now the news turkey has began its covert $1000.00 occupation drive health care workers and high risk groups will be vaccinated 1st take it took delivery of 3000000 doses of the sign of vaccine in december around the clock curfew has come into force in

lebanon to combat a dramatic surge in corona virus infections on wednesday there were known queues outside food stores as beirut residents talked up the lockdown will be imposed for 11 days and is the country's toughest response to the pandemic so far it comes amid growing criticism that uncoordinated policies helped fuel the spread of the virus voting is underway in uganda's general election long queues formed before polling stations opened at 7 in the morning after 35 years in power president yoweri must 70 seeking a 6th term but is facing a serious challenge from opposition leader bobby why in the run up to the vote has been plagued by violence. social media. but you. lucked out this is one. gentleman. doing. that. we vote in the dock to make sure that uganda skipped in the dark but we

were in the dark about uganda in the us the former governor of michigan is facing criminal charges over the water contamination crisis in the city of flint rick snyder is accused the willfully neglect of duty at least 2012 people died in an outbreak of legionnaires' disease up to famed switch its water supply in 2014 in a bid to save money as a result the city's drinking water was found to be contaminated with toxic levels of lead and south korea's top court has upheld a 20 year prison sentence handed down to former president john q. and a for corruption box involvement in a large scale abuse of power and by scandal led to her removal from office those are the headlines coming up next on al-jazeera it's inside story.

the war against code 19 as more countries start mass vaccination programs but the world health organization warns as rich nations benefit the poor ones will be left behind so how can we ensure protection for everyone this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program. the global rollout of copan $1000.00 vaccines is widening the divide between the world's rich and poor the united nations warns what it calls vaccine nationalism is on the rise as wealthier countries including the united states and many in europe buy up millions of potential doses the world

health organization says those with plenty of money have begun mass vaccination campaigns but criticize them for signing deals with drug makers for early supplies w h o's director general urged countries to prioritize kovacs and initiative to secure vaccines to low and middle income nations to countries that have contracted more vaccines done they will need and out of controlling the global supply to also donate and release them to kovacs immediately which is already today to roll out them out quickly and i urge countries and manufacturers to stop making bilateral deals at the expense of quote box. no country's exceptional and should count the query and take you and vaccinate all of their population while some remain reasonable supply of the vaccine on wednesday

indonesia and jordan became the latest to start national vaccination campaigns jordan has secured enough doses for a 5th of its population its health minister says there will be no discrimination and more than $600000.00 syrian refugees will be eligible. all right let's bring in our guests in johannesburg south africa helen rees executive director of the wittes reproductive health and hiv institute and a member of the w.h.o. strategic advisory group of experts on the covert 1900 vaccine in the isle of wight in the u.k. and america health policy manager at oxfam welcome to you both and let me start with you today humanitarians across the globe and in geos have been urging world leaders to urgently make over 1000 vaccinations available to millions of refugees migrants and others displaced by conflict are their calls being heated. well i

think as as you rightly point out the momentum is growing so there's calls for of fair and equitable access across the world because we know that no one is safe from this pandemic until we we reach that critical head immunity across the globe and that company patchy access in some countries and not enough as that continues to put it all at risk if that is the sario. so far you know we're seeing growing momentum for a people's vaccine for a vaccine for the vaccine science to be shed openly without intellectual property barriers so that more manufacturers can get on board to produce the vaccine for many many. current leaders formally does the president of south africa leaders in pakistan we're seeing that momentum grow unfortunately we're

not yet seeing any big step any big changes on the part of rich countries governments and of course these are critical players because that the home to the big pharmaceutical corporations that have developed that seems that have been approved we need those governments to call for people's vaccine to call on those pharmaceutical corporations to change tack share their vaccine science and know how so we can ramp up production and ensure that everybody everywhere even in the poorest countries in the most fragile context can access a vaccine hellen south africa is using the vaccine made jointly by researchers at the university of oxford in the biotech firm astra zeneca is this going to be a game changer since it's easier to store than the pfizer buy on tack and modern alternatives. well i think any vaccine that we can roll out at scale at the moment will be a game changer i think vaccines are

a game changes so that's the 1st statement but for south africa and for the african region more generally it would be a huge challenge to find the vaccine for example which requires these ultra cold storage temperatures simply because the facilities are not there and similarly madonna doesn't have quite a stringent requirements to storage but also require. and all to coat temperature so certainly the astra zeneca which is stable sort of trichy room temperature of $2.00 to $8.00 degrees and stable for a number of months is a much more viable option in terms of rolling out to in our context and there are growing concerns that the efforts to deliver covert 19 vaccines to poorer countries these efforts by kovacs in the w.h.o. that these face a high risk of failure what do you say what's your level of concern yes

we are very concerned to so kovacs was set up as a global purchasing mechanism on behalf of all countries that want to join but primarily to set the interests of poorer nations who are unable to. setup bilateral deals with the vaccine manufacturers and yes we've seen those reports too and an obvious search is the people's vaccine alliance of found that for those countries that are entirely dependent on kovacs 9 out of 10 people in those countries are going to miss out on a vaccine this year and that is because that is struggling with that supply problem as well back to struggling to compete with the vaccine deals that are being made by rich countries which is why we're calling so urgently for this change in tack to should be encouraging the pharmaceutical corporations that it steering deals with to open up their backs in recipes to share them with the world health

organization so that we can get more manufacturers on board in scaling up the production and then we won't be seeing this. this competition if you like this unnecessary competition between vaccinating people here where i am in the u.k. and vaccinating people in south africa pakistan or bolivia we ship we don't need that competition if we fix the supply problem helen there's been a lot of concern obviously about the situation in south africa this new variant of the corona virus that's been found to be spreading there if modifications of the cove in 1000 vaccine are needed to address new variants of the corona virus is that something that you feel can be done rapidly or would that take a lot of time well some of the newer technologies that to so far been shown to be effective these are in a technology is the medan or tries the invention that can be written rather rapidly

changed in a matter of perhaps 66 to 8 weeks but unfortunately those are the expensive technologies other maxine's as well can be modified but that might take a little bit longer so certainly vaccines can be modified but. i think before we jump to that we need to do all the research that's required to just see how effective the current vaccines are against the variants that emerged in the u.k. and from south africa which as you quite rightly said and now globally distributed these are not just limited to those countries by any means so i think let's 1st look at that we are concerned about one aspect of the immune response the antibody response but the priming of the immune response once you have a vaccine doesn't only involve antibodies it involves other compartments of of your immune system so we're still hopeful that those will work and we should be pressing

ahead with the current vaccines even in the face of these there eons as quickly as we can and i let me ask you to expand on the point that helen was making as well i mean how much is there a potential for complicating the rollout of the vaccine with the spread of these new variants. well i think just just speaking from a public health risk perspective there is and this is a an argument that needs to be made again and again that the longer that this virus is allowed to continue in parts of the world the risk of those mutations willing crease which could you know which risk are rendering the vaccines that we have including those ones that are most suitable for developing country contexts it risks rendering buyers ineffective and if if you know we're already struggling with supply with production of these vaccine at the scale required if those modifications have to be made or or even if we have to go back many steps in the

production and the design of these vaccines in order to respond to these mutations then we're setting back cost supply even so so i think that you know the message that i would like to get across this is about the need for speed in the production of these vaccines so that we can avoid those mutations as much as we possibly can and helen i want to ask you something else regarding the new variant of the corona virus in south africa you know do you know how far it has spread throughout the country is there growing concern there that it could become the dominant variant there. it already is the dominant variant in it happened to extremely quickly and you know if there's sort of lessons to be learned one of the triggers for it spread through mass gatherings which were associated with the holiday period but the it has taken on and it has become the dominant variant in the country and early

indications would suggest that it's also spread because this is the equivalent of the northern hemisphere some of it is that's what we've just had and many people go back to many people of migrant workers and they go back to their homes in places like zimbabwe about sana and early indications would certainly suggest that this is their interest going to quite rapidly spread beyond south africa's borders and since there are growing calls to ensure that vulnerable and marginalized populations like refugees like i.d.p.'s like migrants that they you know can be assured getting access to the vaccination going forward i want to ask you about the logistical difficulties of getting covert 19 inoculation programs to refugee camps i mean when we're talking about refugee camps i've spent a lot of time reporting from refugee camps around the world you there are official refugee camps like saturday in jordan and then there are unofficial refugee camps

like what you see dotting the landscape throughout parts of lebanon depending on what kind of refugee encampment or displaced person encampment you're talking about that really can change the level of difficulty on something that's already challenging right. absolutely i mean i think that really goes without saying and it really speaks to the design of these vaccines as well in terms of you know comparing the technologies used in these vaccines but with oxford university i think that you know you should receive welcome praise for the fact that from the outset of the design of these vaccines they wanted it to be very accessible vaccine so that it didn't require extreme storage. extreme cold temperatures except there. so there is a problem in the design of these vaccines that we would like all vaccine manufacturers to be thinking about those that are most difficult environments in

which to and which these need to be deployed and yes the circumstances and those refugee camp they're extremely challenging organizations like unicef like m.s.f. are at the forefront of efforts to ensure that those that just eco challenges can be overcome but it but it is certainly not without challenges and because so many people within these fragile context within these refugee camps are not necessary for as you say outside of formal refugee camps and not necessarily recognized as citizens or you know not recognized as the responsibility of any individual government it's incredibly important that when kovacs is developing its. deployment strategy when the world health organization is looking at this when rich countries governments are securing their vaccine deals that everybody looks to to ensure that we have sufficient supplies for those populations that are not going to

be covered by individual governments and that organizations like m.s.f. like unicef have enough vaccines to deploy and those contexts and that the financial support is there knesset. every to overcome those incredibly difficult logistical challenges helen from your vantage point are you seeing procedures be put in place right now to ensure that vulnerable communities like refugees like displaced persons are going to have access to the copan 1000 vaccine in the near future it's a very good question and i think you know governments that are rushing to try and prepare just national plans but one thing i would say is that the world health organization some months ago put together the committee you mentioned that i work with and for the 1st time there were principles spoke out about the distribution of back since that were ethical principles. they were global ethical principles to say

these are the principles that must drive our decisions and then after that those principles were applied to who we should be purchasing clearly one of the groups that we've many countries to prioritize the health care workers and that because they are such high risk particularly where you don't have good protective equipment and that if we lose our health care workers in many settings we don't have as many as in richer countries if we lose them not only are we not able to go after covert patients but we're not able to look after patients for example who are pregnant and delivering and except exception so so those those principles those ethical principles were applied and one of the things that came out very loudly was that we should take into account people's vulnerabilities so it can be their co-morbidities that will be talked about a lot you know the diabetes high blood pressure obesity you talked about that a lot but the long ability can be that you are there having to live in spaces that

are extremely confined and that you cannot possibly get away from i was listening on the radio locally here today about a family was 47 people in the household you can't socially distance you can't physically just under those circumstances so we need to think about vulnerabilities beyond the medical and we need to think about those who are extremely vulnerable just by virtue of where they rest in in the social order helen i mean if these efforts to deliver code vaccines to poor countries fail i mean you're talking about vulnerabilities if these efforts fail at least in the short term how much worse could the situation get. well if they fail we're not going to be able to break this pandemic it's a simple as that and i think will not live with a rich country or a poor country everyone is now suffering from a 2nd wave 3rd wave everyone is seeing the threat of health services being overwhelmed and healthcare workers not being totally pretty because they've been at

this 3 year now so this is a common experience and no matter where you are and if we don't actually get vaccines equitably to all who need them in the world it will have to be obviously in there in a tiered order apartheid's order because we simply don't have enough vaccines or capacity to roll out to everyone all at once but if we don't do that if you for example you leave africa the african region out there we will see what happened in the the pandemic flu of 2009 where we had vaccine rich countries purchased most of those vaccines and very very few vaccines ever made it to this region and when we got them it was too late now if we do that and we leave out you know little income countries then that the spread will continue we already do know that there are many people for example in the u.s. or even in the u.k. who are choosing not to have vaccines for a variety of reasons that means you're not going to have 100 percent backs in

coverage you will have susceptible populations even if you've got high coverage high attempts at coverage in your country and you're able to do that as long as you have susceptible populations in that manner then and as long as other countries don't have access to a vaccine spread will continue we've seen that with these new variants which are emerging all over the world now that we are probably going to see increased transmissibility and that means that spread will be much easier and of 2 of the points that helen was touching on in her previous answer vaccine now. nationalism and vaccine hesitancy and i want to ask you from your perspective how big an obstacle each of these concepts are when you talk about vaccine nationalism in trying to combat the spread of covert 19 and when you talk about this growing anti vaccine movement this vaccine hesitancy that we are seeing getting you know

essentially growing throughout the world. you know what i think. in terms of the vaccine nationalism we have i think what what is a toxic mix at the moment with supply constraints artificial barriers to the production of the increased production of this vaccine combined with vaccine nationalism which therefore you know directly means that we have a limited supply and if rich countries are buying up more than they need at these vaccines. to spread i mean they are acting in many ways as you would expect them to act you know those governments have priority responsibility for them to cut the people that live within their borders it's quite a natural response of governments to want to purchase as much as possible to hedge their bets on as an many vaccines as possible in order to be successful in

protecting their own people so i think it's politically very difficult to suggest that people in the u.k. should should relinquish the back seems that they have although what it is also really important to get the message across that if we have sarah distribution across the world the evidence suggests that even if that more limited supply the evidence suggests that deaths overall from this pandemic would decrease. but but i think that vaccine nationally is a massive problem precisely because we have limited supply so i come back to that point about maximizing supply so we don't have this false competition and on that same hesitancy yes it's a significant problem in countries like france the vaccine hesitancy is has become an enormous problem and i think the only thing we can do about about tackling that is for clear transparent data clear messaging and said that people are fully

informed about about the ever. dence space around these vaccines the processes that they have gone through to acquire regulate your proof so we're not yet seeing that level of transparency from the from the pharmaceutical corporations about their own data that i would like to see that i think governments need and to be communicating to populations said that people truly understand the benefits the possible side effects of these vaccines so that people can make informed choices to take these vaccines helen it looked to me like you might have wanted to jump in go ahead. no i mean i would echo what anna has just said but i think that one of the things we need to think about to come back to the anti vaccine messaging is i mean again we're seeing the power of social media here because certainly if i look in our region some of the messages that are coming

through didn't region it in africa they came from some other spaces but they quickly get adopted so you know the thought that there is a conspiracy behind vaccines it's not widely held and we really do need to think how we conduct that there's also as you know been a sort of under sort of a sort of undercurrent of anti science sort of a number of years so how do we regain people's trust in science so that when scientists say something that people say we trust that individual we trust what they're saying because that's what needs to happen here but we certainly need to think and each country will have to do its own diagnostic on why people are hesitant about vaccines what diagnostic forefronts would be somewhat different to a diagnostic in south africa and we've spoken a lot today about what would happen if things go wrong i want to try to look at what might happen if things go right the w.h.o.

is administering this rollout to poor nations they aim to have 2000000000 people vaccinated by the end of 2021 how ambitious is that and from what you've witnessed thus far do you think it can be done what has to happen from here on out for that to be accomplished. so i actually think that that is that target of 2000000000 is not ambitious enough and i think we can achieve more if if we change tack you know we're talking about countries in the u.k. my government here. is is you know saying that will be achieving. significant rollout of this vaccine by by easter by mid-year so that week we can enjoy looking into the an escape route from this conduit mick it should be no different for any other country you know the right to health is equal across the planet and we do have the means to get there the

manufacturing capacity that has been reported by old the vaccine manufacturers across the globe suggest that we do have the capacity to make. to make an effect scenes if it's deployed in the right way if this if the scientists shed and i think a really good development yesterday was that doctor found. recognizable leading doctor on infectious diseases and advisor to the government in the united states yesterday lent his support for the pooling of vaccine science and know how lent his support to the world health organizations codes its technology access pool which is the mechanism we need now to be championing and ensuring that the pharmaceutical corporations are sharing their science i think we can massively scale up noxious and if we have a significant change in tack all right will we have run out of times we're going to have to leave the conversation there thanks so much to our guests helen rees and anna marianne and thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time

by visiting our website al-jazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a.j. inside story for me my mage i'm filming the whole thing here bye for now. the usa is all with of in fact the people all right the world people pay attention to what goes on here and i do see it as very good at bringing the news to the world

. he started as a modest man. carry a soldier who'd never imagined he might one day become president of egypt. he had an ambitious wife and son he became an autocrat and was imprisoned for the wrong lawful killing of protesters. the story of the rise and fall of hosni mubarak the family episode $10.00. on the deserted streets of bogota they've become familiar figures couriers on bicycles delivering food or medicine to lock down colombians most of them here are venezuelan migrants they might go missing mother of 4 says contagion is always on her mind none of them receive health insurance for their work and exposing themselves and very few seem to have it yet there may be a bright side people who look down on them as a skilled migrants now say they're essential to control the virus i receive

messages on the out saying that we are you know so i was a nurse back home what i'm doing is not all that different from my passion helping others. this is al jazeera i'm dating obligato with a check on your world headlines donald trump has become the 1st president in the history of the united states to be impeached a 2nd time with just a week before he leaves office the house of representatives has formally charged him with inciting an insurrection 10 republicans broke ranks and join democrats in favor to vote in favor of impeachment it's a rebuke of trump's repeated questioning if election results which included a speech he gave to supporters before they overran the capitol building. scientists in the world health organization have arrived in the chinese city of one han they've been sent there to invest.