WHO seeks G-7’s assistance for global vaccination

VACCINE shortages in hard-hit Brazil and other places have forced World Health Organisation (WHO) to send clarion call on Group 7 indstrialised bloc as several large cities suspend administering second doses of the Chinese-developed CoronaVac shot due to non-availability.

  WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this yesterday in a chat with newsmen, promising to step up the call at the G7 summit in June.

  Warning about the global inequality in access to COVID-19 supplies, he said that rich countries must step up their funding for vaccines, tests and treatments in poorer nations if the pandemic is to be brought to an end.

  “We will only solve the vaccine crisis with the leadership of these countries,” Nearly 1.2 billion doses have so far been injected worldwide, but just 0.2 per cent of them have been administered in the 29 lowest-income countries,” he said.

  It will be recalled that COVID-19 has claimed more than 400,000 lives in Brazil — second only to the United States.