Vaccines will be 'a limited resource' until the end of 2021, WHO chief warns

The World Health Organization on Monday (February 22) warned that vaccines will be "a limited resource" until the end of the year and urged high-income countries to step up and donate to COVAX facility.

"For now, and for the rest of this year, vaccines will be a limited resource. We must use the as strategically as we can," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing in Geneva.

The WHO chief welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron's call on Europe and the United States to allocate up to 5% of their current vaccine supplies to developing countries in an effort to avoid an unprecedented acceleration of global inequality.

But he stressed more could be done and a 22.9 billion US dollars gap still needed to be filled to fully finance the Act-accelerator.

Tedros also urged countries to stop bilateral deals with vaccines manufacturers which "undermine the deal that COVAX has in place and reduce the number of doses COVAX can buy".

Speaking at the same news conference, U.S. chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said long-term solutions needed to be found to avoid poorer countries relying on vaccines donations in the future.

Those countries should "have the capability to make their own vaccines, so that they would be independent of having to rely on the donation of vaccines from other countries," he said.

Asked about rare cases of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction to the vaccines requiring medical attention, that were reported with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the U.S., Fauci said it should not be a contraindication for someone to get vaccinated.

"The risk of getting COVID in this situation is likely greater than the risk of getting any kind deleterious reaction," he said, adding that people who have history of anaphylactic reaction should get vaccinated in a medical facility that has the capability to treat it.

WHO chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said that so far, "there have been no alarming safety signals."

Tedros also paid tribute to Italy's ambassador to Democratic Republic of Congo, his bodyguard and a driver from the World Food Programme who were killed on Monday (February 22) when their convoy was attacked in the east of the country.

The head of WHO said he was "deeply saddened and extremely concerned".