The World Health Organization chief has warned that the rush in wealthy countries to roll out additional COVID-19 vaccine doses was deepening the inequity in access to jabs that is prolonging the pandemic.
Blanket COVID boosters risk prolonging pandemic, WHO chief warns
STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 23, ARTSAKHPRESS: WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted on Wednesday that the priority must remain to get vaccines to vulnerable people everywhere rather than giving additional doses to the already vaccinated.
“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” he told reporters AlJazeera reports.
The UN health agency has long decried the glaring inequity in access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Allowing COVID-19 to spread unabated in some places dramatically increases the chance of new, more dangerous variants emerging, it argues.
“Blanket booster programmes are likely to prolong the pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate,” Tedros told reporters.
