France, Germany, UK, and Israel will continue their COVID-19 booster plans despite WHO’s call for moratorium.
France, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom will continue their COVID-19 booster plans despite World Health Organization’s call for a moratorium.
CNN Philippines reported that Germany, France, Israel, and the United Kingdom were all forging ahead with plans to start administering COVID-19 booster shots starting in, or before, September despite calls from the WHO to ensure poorer countries have enough shots to inoculate their populations first.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for rich countries to implement a moratorium on COVID-19 booster shots until “at least the end of September” in order to enable at least 10 percent of the population of every country to be inoculated against COVID-19.
Echoing Tedros’ call, Katherine O’Brien, the director of immunization vaccines and biologicals at the WHO, said that they needed to focus on those people who were most vulnerable, most at risk of severe disease and death, to get their first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
However, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated on Thursday that France would forge ahead with its COVID-19 booster program from the beginning of September.
In a video message on Instagram, Macron said that they’re preparing themselves like other European countries to carry out a third COVID-19 vaccine dose for people who were the oldest and most fragile, adding that they’ll do it starting from September.
READ ALSO: WHO Calls For Moratorium On COVID-19 Booster Shots Until “At Least End Of September”
Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom have all announced booster programs for their most vulnerable populations in order to slow down the spread of the Delta COVID-19 variant, all of which was due to commence either before, or by the start of, September.
The World Health Organization had spoken out against booster programs throughout this year, calling on wealthy nations and pharmaceutical firms to instead prioritize inoculating more of the world’s population in order to prevent the emergence of COVID-19 variants.
Currently, Africa had the slowest COVID-19 vaccine rollout with less than 2 percent of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Meanwhile, the WHO said that coronavirus deaths across the continent have surged by 80 percent in the last month.
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the Biden administration would also be willing to offer COVID-19 booster shots, if needed, once the Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) updated its guidance on the issue, calling WHO’s call a “false choice”.
Based on a report, wealthy nations continued to sign deals with pharmaceutical firms to secure additional COVID-19 vaccine doses as the United States signed last July a deal with Pfizer to buy 200 million more COVID-19 vaccine doses in order to help with both pediatric immunization and booster shots.
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