COVID-19: WHO says ongoing vaccine crisis is perpetuating pandemic, calls it `scandalous inequity`

WHO said that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and it will not be over `until and unless the transmission is controlled in every last country`.

New Delhi: World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday (May 24, 2021) said that the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine crisis is perpetuating the pandemic and called it a 'scandalous inequity'.

Ghebreyesus stated that a small group of countries that make and buy the majority of the world's vaccines control the fate of the rest of the world.

During the World Health Assembly, he said, "The ongoing vaccine crisis is a scandalous inequity that is perpetuating the pandemic. More than 75% of all vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries."

The WHO director-general said that number of coronavirus vaccine doses administered globally so far would have been enough to cover all health workers and older people, 'if they had been distributed equitably'. 

"We could have been in a much better situation," he expressed.

"Almost 18 months into the defining health crisis of our age, the world remains in a very dangerous situation. As of today, more cases have been reported so far this year than in the whole of 2020," he added.

He asked the countries to implement national vaccination strategies, vaccinate those most at risk, and donate vaccines to COVAX.

Ghebreyesus said that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and it will not be over 'until and unless the transmission is controlled in every last country'.

Globally, as per WHO on May 24, there have been 16,68,60,081 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 34,59,996 deaths. As of May 24, a total of 14,897,27,128 vaccine doses have been administered across the world.