WHO urges G20 to step up COVID-19 vaccine donations to the south

The World Health Organization (WHO) called on the world’s 20 richest nations, holding a summit next week, to step up donations of COVID-19 doses to the global south where vaccinations lag.

“The @g20org countries must fulfil their dose-sharing commitments immediately,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO, said.

Gordon Brown, WHO ambassador for global health financing, said that if the world’s richest countries cannot mobilise for a vaccine airlift to developing countries, an epidemiological and economic “dereliction of duty will shame us all.”

There is still a shortfall of 500 million vaccine doses to reach WHO’s 40 per cent vaccination target in all countries by year-end, while 240 million doses are lying unused in the West, Brown said.