WHO Chief, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus. Photo credit: Curtesy

The Director of World Health Organization has warned that the rush in wealthy countries to roll out additional Covid vaccine doses was deepening the inequity in access to jabs that is prolonging the pandemic.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted that the priority must remain to get vaccines to vulnerable people everywhere rather than giving additional doses to the already vaccinated.

The UN health agency has long decried the glaring inequity in access to Covid vaccines.

Mr. Tedros argues that allowing Covid to spread unabated in some places dramatically increases the chance of new, more dangerous variants emerging.

In October, Tedros called in vain for a suspension on booster doses to vaccinated, healthy people until at least 40 percent of people in all countries had received a first jab.

He pointed out that while enough vaccines had been given to people globally this year to reach that target, distortions in global supply meant that only half the world’s countries had done so.

“Blanket booster programmes are likely to prolong the pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate,”  Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

According to UN figures, about 67 percent of people in high-income countries have had at least one vaccine dose — but not even 10 percent in low-income countries.

His comments came as the Omicron variant’s lightning dash around the globe since it was first detected in South Africa last month dampened hopes the worst of the pandemic was over.

The new variant is spreading at unprecedented speed and has already been detected in 106 countries, the WHO said.

Early data indicates that it could be better at dodging some vaccine protections, spurring the rush to provide boosters.