Criticism Of COVID-19 Vaccine Gap, WHO Asks To Stop Giving Third Dose

Illustration vaksinasi COVID-19. (Wikimedia Commons/Government of the State of São Paulo)

JAKARTA - The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for the discontinuation of the third dose or booster of the COVID-19 vaccine until at least the end of September.

This was said by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday, criticizing the widening gap between vaccinations in rich and poor countries.

The call for a moratorium is the strongest statement from the UN agency, at a time when countries are weighing the need for booster doses to combat the fast-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus.

"I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the Delta variant. However, we cannot accept countries that have used up a large part of the global vaccine supply to use even more," Tedros said.

High-income countries administered about 50 doses for every 100 people in May, and that number has more than doubled, according to the WHO. Meanwhile, low-income countries can only afford 1.5 doses for every 100 people, due to a lack of supply.

"We need an urgent reversal of most of the vaccines currently going to high-income countries, to be diverted to low-income countries," Tedros said.

To counter the spread of the Delta variant, some countries are starting to use or are starting to consider the need for booster doses, although scientists are still debating whether or not additional injections are needed.

"The fact we are vaccinating healthy adults with booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine is a shortsighted way of thinking," criticized Elin Hoffmann Dahl, infectious disease medical adviser for the Medecins Sans Frontieres access campaign.

"With the emergence of new variants, if we continue to leave large parts of the world unvaccinated, we will definitely need adapted vaccines in the future," Dahl told Reuters.

Last week, Israeli President Isaac Herzog received the third dose of the coronavirus vaccine, starting a campaign to give booster doses to people over 60 in the country.

Meanwhile, the United States in July signed a deal with Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech to purchase an additional 200 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, to help vaccinate children as well as possibly booster shots. US health regulators are still assessing the need for a booster dose.