WHO Officials Say Blanket Booster Programs Will Prolong Pandemic
According to a Dec. 22 article from CNBC by Hannah Miao, World Health Organization (WHO) officials critiqued blanket COVID-19 vaccine booster programs. The criticism is related to poor countries struggling to obtain initial doses and officials warn that the unequal access to vaccines could lead to more mutated variants that prolong the pandemic.
Miao reports that “’Blanket booster programs 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,’ WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news briefing.”
Further, “The comments from the WHO come as health officials in the U.S. promote vaccine booster shots for all residents over the age of 16 amid a surge in COVID cases driven by the Omicron strain. Israel on Tuesday [Dec. 21] announced it would offer a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccines to people older than 60.”
On that same day, the WHO issued an interim statement on booster doses for COVID-19 vaccination.
The statement says that “The Director-General of WHO has called for a moratorium on booster vaccination for healthy adults until the end of 2021 to counter the persisting and profound inequity in global vaccine access. While many countries are far from reaching the 40 percent coverage target by the end of 2021, other countries have vaccinated well beyond this threshold, already reaching children and implementing extensive booster vaccination programs. At the time of release of this statement, globally about 20 percent of COVID-19 vaccine doses, daily, are used for booster or additional dose vaccination.”
The statement adds that “Vaccine booster dose policy decisions should be based on evidence of individual and public health benefit and obligations to secure global equity in vaccine access as a means to minimize health impacts and transmission, and thereby reduce the risk of variants and prolongation of the pandemic. While vaccine supply is growing, it is not evenly distributed. Lower income countries have had far less access, and face unpredictable and irregular supply. Within countries, equity considerations support improving coverage of the primary vaccination series in high-risk populations as the top priority use of vaccine doses.”
The full statement from the WHO can be found here.
