WHO Urges High-Income Countries To Halt Booster Vaccines

Rabat – The WHO is ringing the alarm once again as countries with the highest rates of vaccinations are considering to continue hoarding vaccines. The WHO on Wednesday, August 4, has called for a global moratorium on “booster shots” that aim to provide more protection to already-vaccinated people.

WHO Secretary-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus shared a heart-wrenching story as he explained the logic behind the WHO’s call for a moratorium on booster shots.

“In January of this year, a midwife from Uganda called Harriet Nayiga joined our press conference to talk about her experience as a health worker during the pandemic,” Dr Tedros said. “While vaccines were being rolled out in the wealthiest countries, Harriet was one of many health workers in Africa and around the world who was still waiting for her turn to be vaccinated.”

Over six months later, Harriet sent an email to Dr Tedros informing him she had finally received her first dose, after a “tough” two months in which 2,000 people died, including medical colleagues of hers. Regrettably, Harriet’s story is more the norm than the exception in today’s global COVID-19 vaccine distribution.

Immoral division

Wealthier nations make up 11% of the global population, but have procured 40% of all vaccines. Someone in a rich country is 30 times more likely to have been vaccinated than those in lower and middle-income countries. While most African countries have not received enough vaccines for their medical professionals, the US has administered 104.6 doses for every 100 people.

Meanwhile China has shown that a country can both vaccinate its own people, while exporting sufficient quantities. China has administered nearly 1.7 billion doses domestically, while exporting roughly 600 million to the world’s low and middle-income countries.

While countries like Morocco have been able to depend on China for its vaccines, China alone cannot be expected to “rescue” non-Western countries across the globe.

Factories across the world have produced enough to vaccinate 27.4% of the world’s population, enough to vaccinate medical professionals, and the most vulnerable all over the world. Instead, low-risk teens are being vaccinated in the world’s richest countries, while every day thousands, if not millions of medical professionals go to work facing a deadly risk without any vaccination.

The relative absence of vaccines from the West is being noticed by the rest of the world. European and North American nations made lofty promises as they made sure the current for-profit model of vaccine production would remain in place.

For-profit pandemic

Their goals are coming to fruition, national vaccination rates across the West are going up, and vaccine producers are making billions, despite having much of their COVID-19 vaccine research funded by governments. Some pharmaceuticals have even done everything they can to avoid having to pay taxes on the vaccines they have sold.

Today’s COVID-19 crisis has been marked by an unparalleled effort to prioritize the profits of multinational companies and providing vaccines to Western audiences.

The end result is exactly as scientists have predicted long before the first vaccine was approved for production. While some countries are reaching high rates of vaccination domestically, the absence of vaccines elsewhere is leading to new variants that then threaten the efficacy of the vaccines that exist.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

In response to this self-fulfilling prophecy, Western countries appear to have no intention of sharing vaccines with the rest of the world. Instead, they are considering giving their own population a third “booster” vaccine as an answer to the current variants that are seeing cases rise worldwide.

This process is likely to create a dangerous cycle of new variants, more vaccine hoarding and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of preventable deaths. A moratorium on booster shots could at the very least limit this cycle of deaths and destruction. If the past is anything to go by, expect the world’s richest countries to ignore the WHO, and watch the rest of the world’s suffering.

The WHO’s advice on vaccine hoarding, safety precautions and safe practices has been ignored at will by those who can afford a high-quality healthcare system and those who have ample vaccine supplies. For those who have neither, the wanton disregard to the pleas by the world’s top scientists continues to threaten economies and lives around the world.

Morocco’s current influx of new COVID-19 cases broke another record today, reaching 10,603 cases while issuing just 48,002 tests.

While Morocco has its bilateral deals with China to rely on vaccines, much of the world is facing a catastrophe amid shortages. Meanwhile Western countries brag about their generosity in “sharing” their leftover vaccines as they recommend booster shots for their own people.