WHO leaders ask not to talk about booster doses until covid-19 vaccination reaches more people

(CNN) – The leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday asked rich countries not to administer booster doses of coronavirus vaccines to their residents before the inhabitants of other countries can receive their first doses.

“Some countries and regions are asking for millions of booster doses before other countries have had supplies to vaccinate their health workers and the most vulnerable,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news conference.

“Rather than Moderna and Pfizer prioritizing the supply of vaccines as a booster to countries with relatively high population coverage, we need them to work hard to channel supply to Covax, Africa’s vaccine procurement task force, and to low- and middle-income countries, which have very low vaccine coverage. “

Tedros said that access to vaccines is not always a question of ability to pay, and that many under-vaccinated countries are willing to pay for doses as long as they can get them.

“When we say sharing, it’s not giving it for free. I can bring a long list of countries that say ‘We have money. Where can we buy the vaccines? Just give us the vaccines. We can pay for them,'” Tedros said.

“It is becoming a two-tier system,” added Tedros. “That is dangerous. It has been seen, and everyone is seeing it now, that high-income countries are beginning to say, ‘We have managed to control it. It is not our problem.’

“This is still a global crisis”

Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, agreed.

“We have to decide what our priority is, and how much of ‘this is a global crisis’ we are not understanding. This is still a global crisis,” Ryan said at the briefing. “If we move on to other matters,” he said, “I think we will look back angrily, and we will look back and be ashamed,” he added.

“There are some people who want to have their cake and eat it, and then they make more cake, and they want to eat it too.”

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO chief scientist, said the data does not yet support the use of booster vaccines or vaccine mix, and decisions about boosters should be driven by research.

“It will be a chaotic situation in the countries if citizens start to decide when and who should take a second, third or fourth dose,” he said.

Swaminathan said the WHO is studying whether a booster may be necessary at some point in the future. “It has to be based on science and data, not individual companies declaring that their vaccines must be given now,” he said.