A top World Health Organization (WHO) official announced that the number of COVID-19 vaccinations has surpassed the number of reported infections globally as of Friday, praising the remarkable achievement done in such a short timeframe.
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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, made the remarks during a press conference held at the WHO headquarters on Friday.
However, Tedros cautioned, challenges still exist for the uneven distribution of the vaccines.
“More than three quarters of those vaccinations were done in just 10 countries that account for almost 60 percent of global GDP, and almost 130 countries with 2.5 billion people are yet to administer a single dose,” he said.
Tedros emphasized that all governments have an obligation to protect their own people. But once countries with vaccines have vaccinated their own health workers and older people, the best way to protect the rest of their own population is to share vaccines so that other countries can do the same.
WHO’s Health Emergencies program Executive Director Dr Mike Ryan stressed the COVID-19 virus still has a huge amount of energy. He pointed out that a massive force of infection is still associated with this virus.
“The virus isn’t going away by itself and it won’t. It will go away when we put it away,” he added.
For her part, WHO’s COVID-19 Technical lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said that in addition to vaccines, the most effective methods to prevent the spread of the virus are still to wear face masks and keep social distancing.
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