By Babajide Okeowo
The world is facing a severe shortage of vaccines against Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), leading to inequalities among a number of countries in terms of access to the vaccines.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative to Russia, Melita Vujnovic, made the disclosure on Wednesday.
“Of course, the shortage of COVID-19 vaccines across the world is large … the vaccines are available in high-income countries, which leads to serious inequalities,” Vujnovic said live on the Rossiya 24 Channel.
Earlier in January, WHO Chief Tedros Ghebreyesus slammed high-income countries for scooping up COVID-19 vaccines, and called for equitable distribution of the vaccines.
According to Ghebreyesus, although WHO’s vaccine distribution mechanism, COVAX, secured contracts for two billion doses, better-off countries are draining vaccine supplies by making additional bilateral deals.
So far, there are 96, 741, 757 COVID-19 cases, 2, 068, 733 deaths and 69,431, 809 recoveries, globally.
