August 4, 2021 – The World Health Organization has called on rich countries to wait to give their citizens booster doses of COVID-19. Vaccines Until at least the end of September to give more people in other countries a chance to get their first dose of these lifesaving shots.
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, Ph.D., said that more than 80% of the 4 billion Serum The doses given were distributed around the world to high-income countries, although they represent less than half of the world’s population.
“I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from delta variableGhebreyesus said. But we cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of Vaccines By using more of it, the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected.”
So far, high-income countries have given around 100 vaccine doses per 100 people, while low-income countries have given only 1.5 doses per 100 people.
“This means that in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries with weaker health systems, health care workers are working without protection … the older population remains at great risk,” said Bruce Aylward, WHO’s senior adviser on regulatory change. .
But not everyone agrees.
There are doses already in the United States that won’t last long enough to be sent elsewhere, said Leana Wen, MD, a visiting professor at the Milken Institute of Public Health at George Washington University.
“Yes, we need to get vaccines out to the world (which also includes helping with distribution, not just supply), but there are doses that are expiring here in the United States,” She said on Twitter. “Why not allow those who are immunosuppressed to receive it?”
Israel became the first country to start giving some residents booster doses on Sunday, offering extra doses to elderly people over 5 months after their last vaccinations. And Germany announced, on Monday, that it will also provide booster doses for patients at risk, such as those staying in nursing homes, starting in September.
Aylward said the moratorium was about “trying to suspend these policies until and unless we succeed in harming the rest of the world.”
He said it’s clear from the contingency of the variable after the alternative that if we don’t stop the transmission of the virus around the world, pandemic It will continue to put pressure on vaccines, making them less effective and less effective.
We can only get out of it if the whole world gets out of it together, said Aylward.
“We need an urgent reversal, from moving the majority of vaccines to high-income countries, to going most to low-income countries,” Ghebreyesus said, asking leaders of high-income countries to wait until booster doses are distributed at least 10 times. % of the world’s population has been vaccinated.
“To make this happen, we need everyone’s cooperation, particularly the handful of countries and companies that control the global supply of vaccines,” he said.