Washington DC, 13/11:Six times more booster shots of coronavirus vaccine are being administered around the world daily than primary doses in low-income countries, the director-general of the World Health Organization said Friday, calling the disparity “a scandal that must stop now.”
The official, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and others at WHO have regularly criticised wealthy nations for hoarding vaccines while lower-income countries do not have enough doses to vaccinate their elderly, front-line health care workers and other high-risk groups. In August, Tedros called for a global moratorium on boosters that he later extended until the end of the year.
However, nations including Germany, Israel, Canada and the United States have gone ahead with booster programs. The WHO said in an email that 92 countries had confirmed programs to provide added doses and that none of them were low-income.
About 28.5 million Covid vaccine doses are given daily around the world. According to the WHO, about a quarter of those are booster or additional doses. (Boosters are meant to bolster protection for those who were earlier fully vaccinated; additional doses are for immunocompromised people whose initial vaccinations failed to sufficiently protect them against the virus.)