JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, February 28, 2025

WHO says COVID boosters needed, reversing previous call

by

1088 days ago
20220308
A healthcare worker administers an AstraZeneca booster shot for COVID 19 at a vaccination center in Guatemala City, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

A healthcare worker administers an AstraZeneca booster shot for COVID 19 at a vaccination center in Guatemala City, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

SOURCE: AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

 

GENE­VA (AP) — An ex­pert group con­vened by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion said Tues­day it “strong­ly sup­ports ur­gent and broad ac­cess” to boost­er dos­es, in a re­ver­sal of the U.N. agency’s pre­vi­ous in­sis­tence that boost­ers weren’t nec­es­sary and con­tributed to vac­cine in­equity.

In a state­ment, WHO said its ex­pert group con­clud­ed that im­mu­niza­tion with au­tho­rized COVID-19 vac­cines pro­vide high lev­els of pro­tec­tion against se­vere dis­ease and death amid the glob­al cir­cu­la­tion of the huge­ly con­ta­gious omi­cron vari­ant.

It said vac­ci­na­tion, in­clud­ing the use of boost­ers, was es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant for peo­ple at risk of se­vere dis­ease.

Last year, WHO’s di­rec­tor-gen­er­al Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus called for a mora­to­ri­um on boost­er dos­es while dozens of coun­tries em­barked on ad­min­is­ter­ing the dos­es, say­ing rich coun­tries should im­me­di­ate­ly do­nate those vac­cines to poor coun­tries in­stead. WHO sci­en­tists said at the time they would con­tin­ue to eval­u­ate in­com­ing da­ta.

Nu­mer­ous sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies have since proven that boost­er dos­es of au­tho­rized vac­cines help re­store wan­ing im­mu­ni­ty and pro­tect against se­ri­ous COVID-19. Boost­er pro­grams in rich coun­tries in­clud­ing Britain, Cana­da and the U.S. have been cred­it­ed with pre­vent­ing the surge in omi­cron in­fec­tions from spilling over in­to hos­pi­tals and ceme­ter­ies.

WHO said it is con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor the glob­al spread of omi­cron, in­clud­ing a “stealth” ver­sion known as BA.2, which has been doc­u­ment­ed to have re-in­fect­ed some peo­ple af­ter an ini­tial case of omi­cron. There’s mixed re­search on whether it caus­es more se­vere dis­ease, but vac­cines ap­pear just as ef­fec­tive against it.

WHO not­ed that the cur­rent au­tho­rized COVID-19 vac­cines are all based on the strain that was first de­tect­ed in Wuhan, Chi­na more than three years ago.

“Since then, there has been con­tin­u­ous and sub­stan­tial virus evo­lu­tion and it is like­ly that this evo­lu­tion will con­tin­ue, re­sult­ing in the emer­gence of new vari­ants,” the agency said. It added that coro­n­avirus vac­cines would like­ly need to be up­dat­ed.

 

COVID-19COVID-19 deathsCovid Booster


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored