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World Health Organization leaders on Monday called on wealthy countries not to give booster doses of coronavirus vaccines to their residents before people in other countries can even receive their first doses.
“Some countries and regions are actually ordering millions of booster doses before other countries have had supplies to immunize their health workers and the most vulnerable,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a press briefing.
“Instead of Moderna and Pfizer prioritizing the provision of vaccines as booster shots to countries with populations with relatively high coverage, we need them to make every effort to get the supply to COVAX, the team at COVAX. work on vaccine procurement in Africa and low- and middle-income countries, which have very low immunization coverage, ”he said.
Tedros said access to vaccines is not always about ability to pay, and many under-immunized countries are willing to pay for doses as long as they can get them.
“When we say share, it’s not like giving it away for free. I can bring you a long list of countries that say “We have money”. Where can I buy the vaccines? Just give us the shots. We can pay for it, ”Tedros said.
“It becomes a two-tier system,” Tedros added. ” It’s dangerous. You have seen it, and everyone is seeing it now – high income countries are starting to say, “We got it under control. It is not our problem.
Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, agrees.
“We have to decide what our priority is, and what part of ‘this is a global crisis’ don’t we get? It’s still a global crisis, ”Ryan said at the briefing. “If we move on,” he said, “I think we’ll look back with anger, and we’ll look back with shame,” he added.
“There are people who want to have their cake and eat it, and then they make some more cake, and they want to eat it too.”
WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan said the data does not yet support the use of booster vaccines or the vaccine mix, and decisions about boosters should be guided by research.
“It will be a chaotic situation in countries if citizens start to decide when and who should take a second, third or fourth dose,” she said.
Learn more about the possible boosters: Last week, Pfizer / BioNTech said they are seeing decreased immunity in people who have received their vaccine and said they are redoubling their efforts to develop a booster dose that will protect people against the variants. . But in an unusual move, two prominent federal agencies – the FDA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – said Americans did not yet need boosters and said it did not belong. not for companies alone to decide when they might be needed.
Pfizer will virtually inform U.S. government officials today of the potential need for booster shots of its Covid-19 vaccine.
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