Well-vaccinated countries should prioritise COVAX over booster shots – WHO's Tedros

01/09/2021 coronavirus, GERM, health, US, who

FILE PHOTO: World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus waits for the arrival of Swiss Interior and Health Minister Alain Berset before a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the opening of the 74th World Health Assembly at the WHO headquarters, in Geneva, Switzerland May 24, 2021. Laurent Gillieron/Pool via REUTERS

BERLIN (Reuters) – The World Health Organisation recommends against using spare doses of COVID-19 vaccine to give booster shots to countries’ fully-vaccinated populations, since the priority is to ensure the global population is vaccinated, the agency’s head said.

Speaking in Berlin at the opening of a new epidemic intelligence hub, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries with spare vaccines available to donate any deliveries they received in the near term to COVAX or other initiatives aimed at sharing doses with poorer countries.

“For now, we do not want to see widespread use of boosters for healthy people who are fully vaccinated,” he said. “We call on countries that have contracted high volumes of vaccines to swap near-term delivery schedules with COVAX and the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust, or AVAT.”

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