Hoarding coronavirus vaccine 'keeps pandemic burning': WHO

GENEVA • Rich countries squabbling over Covid-19 vaccine supplies must consider the situation in poorer parts of the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said, warning that hoarding of shots "keeps the pandemic burning".

The WHO officials were speaking after the European Commission said it had agreed to a plan to control exports of vaccines from the European Union, including those to Britain, arguing that it needed to ensure its own supplies.

Having delivered just 2.2 shots for every 100 people, the EU lags way behind both the United States and the United Kingdom, and is several months away from immunising a sufficient number of people to allow a return to normality.

"If we hoard vaccines and we are not sharing, there will be three major problems. One, I have said it, it will be a catastrophic moral failure. Two, it keeps the pandemic burning, and three, very slow global economy recovery," Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, told a virtual briefing on Friday.

"So it is our choice, and I hope we will choose the right things," he said, almost a year since he declared a public health emergency over the emergence of the coronavirus.

Dr Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergency expert, told the briefing - also attended by a midwife from Uganda and a nurse from Pakistan - that people had to think about front-line colleagues like them. He decried countries "fighting over the cake" when front-line health workers in poor countries "don't even have access to the crumbs".

The WHO said the world needed to diversify the supply chain for making Covid-19 vaccines and that it was looking at other suppliers.

The organisation said this month it had reached an agreement with Pfizer/BioNTech for 40 million doses of its vaccine and should be able to start delivering vaccines to poor and lower-, middle-income countries next month under the Covax programme.

It hopes to give emergency-use listing for the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine within two weeks, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO's chief scientist, said.

Dr Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director for access to medicines and health products, also told reporters the WHO had a team in China to inspect vaccine facilities.

She told the briefing the WHO had a meeting with the manufacturers of Russia's vaccine, with more meetings due as they wait for more information.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG