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WHO urges rich countries to hold off on booster shots until next year
The boss of the World Health Organisation has urged wealthy countries to delay the booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has urged rich countries with an excess supply of COVID vaccines to hold-off booster shots for the rest of the year.
He urged rich nations to delay booster shots until 2022 to allow poor counties to access the vaccine.
Ghebreyesus expanded on an earlier request that was initially, largely ignored.
The WHO boss spoke to reporters on Wednesday in Geneva and stated that he was “appalled” at comments made by a leading association of pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Those comments, made a day earlier, stated that vaccine supplies are high enough to allow for both booster shots and vaccinations in desperate countries that need vaccines.
“I will not stay silent when companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world’s poor should be satisfied with leftovers,”
Ghebreyesus said.
Rich nations are set to have a major surplus of COVID-19 vaccines
Wealthy countries could potentially have a surplus of more than one billion vaccine doses by the end of the year that aren’t set to be donated to poorer countries.
According to new research, COVID vaccine stock in Western nations has now reached 500 million doses this month alone, with 360 million not marked to be donated, according to the research conducted by data analytics firm Airfinity.
Airfinity stated that by the end of the year, these countries will have a potential of 1.2 billion surplus vaccine shots, with the overwhelming majority – 1.06 billion – not marked for donations.
The full Airfinity report, focuses on the available supply of vaccines in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada and Japan.