Date Published: 07/01/2022
ARCHIVED - WHO criticises countries administering fourth Covid vaccine
The health authorities hope to fully vaccinate 70% of the population by mid-2022
The director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has criticised countries who have begun administering a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine when so many countries are falling far behind and has called for an “end to the inequality of last year”.
“At the current rate, 109 countries in the world will not be able to meet the goal of having 70% of their population vaccinated by mid-2022”, he explained, adding that while some nations have begun issuing a second booster, others can’t even manage to inoculate their health care staff.
The WHO director has argued that the pandemic will not be eradicated as long as there are millions of unvaccinated citizens around the world and has called on countries to begin sharing their doses with underprivileged nations.
“Vaccine inequality kills and destroys jobs, and undermines economic recovery”, the health leader stressed, and asked the world leaders to “start over” in 2022 and commit to the global vaccination strategy.
The main fear of experts is that new strains will continue to appear in countries with low vaccinations rates, and although Omicron appears to be less serious than the Delta variant, it is still leading to hospitalisations and deaths.
Global cases of coronavirus increased by 70% in the week from December 27 to January 2, a figure never before seen, but Covid-related deaths fell by 10% during the same period.
Last week, there were 9.5 million confirmed infections, a figure that was almost double the previous weekly records while 41,000 worldwide deaths were reported – the fourth consecutive week of decreases despite the current virulent wave of infections.
Image: Ayto. Torre Pacheco
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