WHO chief urges rich nations not to undermine COVAX scheme

Wealthy countries’ deals with vaccine manufacturers led to reduction in vaccines allocated to COVAX, WHO head says.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has pleaded with rich countries to check before ordering additional COVID-19 vaccine shots for themselves whether that undermines efforts to get vaccine shots to poorer nations. Wealthy nations have snapped up several billion vaccine doses and some countries have ordered enough shots to vaccinate their populations more than once, while some countries in the developing world have little or none. A successful global vaccination campaign is considered to be key to stemming the pandemic.