The head of the World Health Organization said today that there should be no illusion that it is enough to give booster doses to get out of the pandemic Covid-19 and noted that the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are people who have not been vaccinated, not those who have not received a booster dose.
"No country will be able to get out of the pandemic with commemorative doses, and commemorative doses are not a green light to celebrate as we envisioned," WHO Director-General Andranom Gebregesus told a news conference in Geneva.
"Indiscriminate booster programs are more likely to prolong the pandemic than to end it by channeling available doses to countries that already have high vaccination rates, giving the virus a greater chance of spreading and mutating," he said. Tent.
"It is important to remember that the vast majority of illnesses and deaths are people who have not been vaccinated, not those who have not received a booster dose," he said, adding that "we need to be very clear" that remain effective against Delta variants as well as microns ”.
As he noted "as we approach the new year, we must all learn from the painful lessons that this year has taught us, 2022 must be the end of its pandemic COVID-19".
According to the committee of experts of the WHO. In the field of vaccination policy (SAGE), at least 126 countries have already given instructions for booster doses or additional vaccinations (for children, for example) and 120 of them have already launched campaigns. In the vast majority, high- and middle-income countries, while "no poor country has yet introduced a booster program," SAGE said in a statement issued this afternoon.
Moreover, in a briefing to the media, the head of the technical team of the WHO. for COVID-19, Maria van Kerkov, said that there is still not enough data for the new omicron variant of the coronavirus, so we can say if it is more contagious than the Delta variant.
"We do have some data showing that hospitalization rates are lower," he said, but warned against drawing conclusions from early data because "we have not seen this variant circulate long enough in populations around the world, certainly in vulnerable populations." ”.
The WHO official He added that details of the new variant, first identified in southern Africa and Hong Kong in November, were still "misplaced" as countries announced their arrival and deployment.