Stop hogging inoculations, WHO tells rich countries

The World Health Organization has urged rich nations that have vaccinated their healthcare workers and senior citizens to share vaccines with more than 100 poor countries that have not administered a single dose.

The number of vaccinations has now overtaken the number of reported infections globally, the WHO said.

"In one sense, that's good news and a remarkable achievement in such a short time frame," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference on Friday.

Tedros expressed deep concern that more than three quarters of the vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for almost 60 percent of global GDP.

"Almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose."

Some countries have already vaccinated large proportions of their population who are at lower risk of severe disease or death, he said.

"All the governments have an obligation to protect their own people. But once countries with COVID-19 vaccines have vaccinated their own healthcare workers and older people, the best way to protect the rest of their own population is to share vaccines so other countries can do the same."

He stressed that the longer it takes to vaccinate those most at risk everywhere, the more opportunity the virus will have to mutate and evade vaccines.

On Wednesday, COVAX, a global vaccine initiative led by the WHO and several other entities, published its forecast for the distribution of vaccines to participating countries.

Tedros said countries are ready to go but the vaccines are not there.

WHO Europe Regional Director Hans Kluge echoed the views in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday. He told rich nations not to "wait until you have 70 percent (of your population vaccinated) to share with the Balkans, to share with Central Asia, Africa".

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said on Wednesday that at the request of the WHO, China has decided to offer 10 million doses of vaccines to COVAX mainly to meet the urgent need of the developing world.