GENEVA (AP) — Top officials at the World Health Organization said Thursday that Europe has seen a more than 50% jump in coronavirus cases in the last month, making it the epicenter of the pandemic despite an ample supply of vaccines.
“There may be plenty of vaccine available, but uptake of vaccine has not been equal,” WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said during a press briefing on Thursday.
He called for European authorities to “close the gap” in vaccinations. However, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries that have immunized more than 40% of their populations should stop and instead donate their doses to developing countries that have yet to offer their citizens a first dose.
“No more boosters should be administered except to immuno-compromised people,” Tedros said.
He called for vaccine-makers to prioritize supplying COVAX, the U.N.-backed effort to share doses globally; Pfizer has sold just 1% of its supply to COVAX, Moderna had provided just 1 million doses to the developing world as of late October.
Still, despite poorer countries receiving fewer than 1% of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines, cases in Africa and Southeast Asia fell by 9% last week.
More than 60 countries have started giving booster doses to combat waning immunity before winter, when another COVID-19 wave is expected. In the United States, children ages 5 to 11 started getting COVID-19 shots this week after authorities decided the benefits outweighed the risks.
Earlier on Thursday, the director of WHO’s 53-country Europe region, Dr. Hans Kluge, said the rising COVID-19 case counts are of “grave concern.”