WHO head calls Covid-19 boosters a "scandal" as many around the world await first jab

The unequal distribution of Covid-19 booster shots in rich countries, as many poor countries struggle to give residents their first shots is a “scandal” that must end, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday.

“Every day, there are six times more boosters administered globally than primary doses in low-income countries […] this is a scandal that must stop now,” Ghebreyesus said.

The WHO chief criticized the distribution of boosters to healthy adults saying that “it makes no sense to give boosters to healthy adults, or to vaccinate children, when health workers, older people and other high-risk groups around the world are still waiting for their first dose.”

However, he added that there is an exception — immunocompromised individuals.

Inequitable vaccine distribution has hit Africa particularly hard, where just 6 percent of the continent’s population is fully vaccinated against Covid, the WHO’s Regional Office for Africa reported on October 28.

“Vaccines alone will not end the pandemic, but we cannot end the pandemic unless we solve the global vaccine crisis,” Ghebreyesus said.

The WHO previously set a goal of vaccinating 40 percent of the population of every country by the end of the year, but more than 100 countries are currently short of the target, WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said at the WHO’s briefing according to CNBC.

Swaminathan added that the WHO would likely miss that goal unless COVAX, the WHO’s initiative for providing Covid shots for at least 20 percent of countries’ populations, received approximately 500 million more doses to distribute.

Just five countries in Africa have vaccinated more than 35 percent of their populations, including Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritius, according to Our World in Data, as the majority of African nations have fully vaccinated less than 10 percent of their populations.