The World Health Organisation (WHO) says a third of the world’s population has yet to receive a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, including a shocking 83 per cent of all Africans.

“This is not acceptable to me, and it should not be acceptable to anyone. Are some lives worth more than others?” said WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus.

He said WHO was launching a new strategy to scale up genomic surveillance for deadly pathogens that had “epidemic and pandemic potential” to tackle the future threat of the virus.

According to him, COVID-19 has taken well over six million lives and infected no fewer than 483 million people. He added that the WHO had unveiled the updated Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response Plan for COVID-19.

“This is our third strategic plan for COVID-19, and it could and should be our last”, he said, laying out three possible scenarios for how the pandemic could evolve this year. “The most likely scenario is that the virus continues to evolve, but the severity of the disease it causes reduces over time as immunity increases due to vaccination and infection.”

He also stressed periodic spikes in cases and deaths might occur as immunity wanes, requiring boosting for vulnerable populations.

“In the best-case scenario, we may see less severe variants emerge, and boosters or new formulations of vaccines won’t be necessary,” stated the WHO boss.

According to him, addressing the situation will require significantly altering the current vaccines and making sure they get to the people who are most vulnerable to severe disease.

In addition, he said equitable vaccination remained the single most powerful tool at the world’s disposal to save lives.

“Striving to vaccinate 70 per cent of the population of every country remains essential for bringing the pandemic under control, with priority given to health workers, older people and other at-risk groups,’’ he noted.

(NAN)