By Haruna Gimba
The Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, has called for a moratorium on COVID-19 vaccine boosters until “at least the end of September” to enable the world’s most vulnerable people to be inoculated.
During his weekly press conference, Tedros recalled that in May he had requested international support to promote global vaccinations with the goal of enabling a minimum of 10 per cent of each country’s population to be vaccinated by the end of September.
“I understand the concern of all Governments to protect their people from the Delta variant, but we cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it, while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected,” Tedros said.
With more than half of the time already elapsed, he regretted that too little progress had been made towards that goal and even less towards the target of vaccinating 30 per cent by the end of this year.
The WHO chief indicated that so far, more than four billion COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered around the globe, 80 per cent of them in high- and middle-income countries – even though less than half of the world’s population live there.
As of May, high-income countries had administered about 50 doses for every 100 people, a figure that has since almost doubled, while a lack of supply in low-income countries have left only 1.5 doses for every 100 people.
“Still, some rich countries are considering booster doses even though there are hundreds of millions of people waiting to have access to a first dose,” stressed Tedros, urging that instead, most of vaccines go to low-income countries.
WHO has insisted that reaching global vaccination goals require everyone’s cooperation, “especially the handful of countries and companies that control the global supply of vaccines.”
Tedros said that the G20 leading industrialized nations have a vital role to play as its members are the largest producers, consumers, and donors of COVID-19 vaccines.
“It’s no understatement to say that the course of the pandemic depends on the leadership of the G20 countries,” he said, adding, that one month from now, the G20 health ministers will meet, ahead of the October summit and calling on them to “make concrete commitments to support WHO’s global vaccination targets. We call on vaccine producers to prioritize COVAX”.
Tedros also called on Olympians, business leaders, religious leaders and other influential personalities, as well as every individual and community to support the moratorium on booster doses.
