WHO: Warns Booster Campaigns Won’t End the COVID-19 Pandemic

On Wednesday, the WHO chief noted that the rush by wealthy countries to distribute additional COVID-19 jabs proliferates the inequity in accessing them. The United Nations health agency has warned about the inequalities that accessing Covid vaccines brings to the world, leaving too many people vulnerable in poorer nations.

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"Blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the Covid-19 pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate," declared Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

ON Wednesday Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization of the WHO exposed that an average of 126 countries made recommendations on boosters or additional vaccine doses, while 120 are implementing programs about it.

"No country can boost its way out of the pandemic; no low-income country has yet introduced a booster vaccination program," added Tedros.

Experts have warned that the unequal distribution of vaccines worldwide would create more coronavirus strains.

Tedros's declarations come right after the Omicron strain appeared for the first time in South Africa last month. This new variant has quickly spread to over 106 countries.

Researches have indicated that this new strain has heavily mutated, is highly transmissible, and could be better at evading some vaccines protections; even so, booster vaccines keep emerging to push higher protection.