WHO asks rich countries to suspend recalls of Covid vaccines at least until September



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A paramedic prepares doses of AstraZeneca vaccine for patients at a walk-in COVID-19 clinic inside a Buddhist temple in the Sydney suburb of Smithfield on August 4, 2021.

Said Khan | AFP | Getty Images

The World Health Organization on Wednesday called on rich countries to stop the distribution of Covid-19 booster vaccines, citing vaccine inequality around the world.

The agency said the shutdown is expected to last for at least two months, to give the world a chance to meet the CEO’s goal of vaccinating 10% of each country’s population by the end of September.

“We need an urgent reversal of the majority of vaccines intended for high-income countries, the majority for low-income countries,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing.

The request is part of Ghebreyesus’ plan to vaccinate 40% of the world by December, according to his senior adviser, Dr Bruce Aylward.

“The big picture here is like a policy of not going ahead with boosters until we have the whole world to a point where older populations, people with co-morbidities, people who work in first line, are all protected as much as possible with vaccines, ”Aylward said during the briefing.

Vaccinating the entire world population is essential to end the coronavirus pandemic, experts say. The delta variant that is now ravaging the United States was first detected by scientists in India after the original Covid strain was allowed to spread, replicate and ultimately mutate. The result was a highly infectious variant with a greater chance of vaccine escape that became dominant in most countries.

Other strains will emerge, posing greater risks to all countries, vaccinated or not, unless more of the world’s population is immunized.

“The whole world is in the middle of this and as we have seen with the emergence of variant after variant, we can’t get out of it unless the whole world comes out together, and with the huge disparity coverage, we just can’t do it, ”said Aylward.

The duration of the moratorium request could be extended if vaccination rates in low-rate countries do not increase.

“Right now, if you look at how vaccines are used around the world, the rate of adoption by high-income countries and upper-middle-income countries is absorbing too much of the global supply for countries. low income, ”Aylward said.

The move comes after Israel announced that the country would give booster doses to its elderly population. The Dominican Republic has also given booster doses to its people, while neighboring Haiti only recently got its first batch of vaccine doses.

In the United States, people are also finding ways to get booster shots.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health and San Francisco’s Zuckerberg General Hospital said on Tuesday they would allow patients who have received the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine to receive an additional injection of an mRNA vaccine.

Vaccine giant Pfizer has maintained people will need a booster, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the data justifying the need for booster doses remains unclear.

WHO officials have also said that beyond December they hope 70% of the world will be vaccinated by the middle of 2022, “and that’s when we can really start to. focus on the limits of the level needed to go beyond, “Dr Kate O’Brien, WHO director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologics, said at the briefing.

Until that goal is met, global health officials hope countries with high immunization rates will comply with the demand for a moratorium and, more importantly, the call to end inequalities in this area. vaccination.

“We need a vaccine strategy, and we need public health and social measures at the individual and community level, we need everyone to step up now,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical manager of the WHO Covid-19.

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