The World Health Organization (WHO) again took aim at wealthier countries’ COVID-19 booster programs and accused them of prolonging the COVID-19 pandemic.
“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 in a news briefing this week.
When the United States and some European nations announced their plans to distribute booster doses earlier this year, Tedros and other WHO authorities criticized the move. They said that those doses should instead be doled out to poorer nations.
Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergency director, earlier this month questioned the logic of several countries trying to produce more booster doses to vaccinate everyone aged 18 and older.
Health officials in the United States have continued to promote COVID-19 booster shots for all residents aged 16 and older amid a surge of Omicron strain cases across the United States, although very few deaths have been reported so far worldwide. On Tuesday, Israel announced it would offer a fourth Pfizer vaccine dose to individuals older than age 60.
Tedros also told reporters that most people in hospitals with COVID-19 around the world are not vaccinated. He didn’t provide evidence to back up the claim.
“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” he said.