WTO chief calls for diversification of vaccine production

The head of the World Trade Organization says it is of paramount importance to diversify vaccine manufacturing and to have more production taking place in Africa and Latin America to contain the coronavirus pandemic

BRUSSELS -- The head of the World Trade Organization said Thursday it is of paramount importance to diversify vaccine manufacturing and to have more production taking place in Africa and Latin America to contain the pandemic. On the eve of a global health summit in Rome, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told European Union legislators that normal market forces for exports and imports couldn't apply when it comes to the life-or-death issue of COVID-19 vaccines, as many of the world’s wealthiest nations were hoarding the shots for their own population when the crisis hit their home turf. She said the world has the capacity to manufacture some 5 billion vaccine doses overall but that as the virus has spread “we require twice and three times that. So the capacity was not there.” One of the main challenges is diversifying vaccine production, which is now 80% concentrated in 10 European, North American and South Asian nations, Okonjo-Iweala said, calling the situation a problem that “has come home to roost.”