WHO Warns Against Blanket Boosters As Vaccine Inequity Persists

UN News – Blanket COVID-19 vaccine booster programmes could prolong the pandemic and increase inequity, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Wednesday.

“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking in Geneva during his final press briefing for the year.

“And boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead with planned celebrations, without the need for other precautions,” he added.

Diverting Vaccine Supply

The WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) has issued interim guidance on booster doses, expressing concern that mass programmes for countries that can afford them, will exacerbate vaccine inequity.

Currently, around 20 per cent of all vaccine doses administered are being given as boosters or additional doses.

“Blanket booster programmes are likely to prolong the 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,” said Tedros.

He stressed that the priority must be on supporting countries to vaccinate 40 per cent of their populations as quickly as possible, and 70 per cent by the middle of 2022.

“It’s important to remember that the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are in unvaccinated people, not un-boosted people,” he said. “And we must be very clear that the vaccines we have, remain effective against both the Delta and Omicron variants.”

Against Vaccine Inequity

Tedros reported that while some countries are now rolling out blanket programmes – for a third or even fourth shot, in the case of Israel – only half of WHO’s 194 Member States have been able to inoculate 40 per cent of their populations due to “distortions in global supply”.

Enough vaccines were administered globally in 2021, he said. Therefore, every country could have reached the target by September, if doses had been distributed equitably through the global solidarity mechanism COVAX and its African Union counterpart, AVAT.

“We’re encouraged that supply is improving,” said Tedros. “Today, COVAX shipped its 800 millionth vaccine dose. Half of those doses have been shipped in the past three months.”