The boss of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Wednesday against the illusion that it would be enough to administer booster doses to get out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No country will be able to get out of the pandemic with booster shots, and the booster shots are not a green light to celebrate as planned,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, during a press briefing in Geneva, a few days before Christmas.
“Indiscriminate recall programs are likely to prolong the pandemic rather than end it. They divert available doses to countries that already have high vaccination rates, giving the virus more opportunities to spread and mutate. “
“It is important to remember that the vast majority of people hospitalized and dead are people who are not vaccinated, not people who have not had a booster dose,” said the CEO, adding: ” And we need to be very clear “that” the vaccines remain effective against the Delta and Omicron variants. “
According to the WHO Expert Committee on Immunization Policy (SAGE), at least 126 countries have already given instructions for a booster dose or expanded vaccination (to children for example), and 120 of them have already started the campaigns in this direction. The vast majority of them are rich or middle-income countries, while “no poor country has yet started a recall program,” SAGE said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.
“Immunization efforts must continue to focus on reducing [du nombre] deaths and serious cases and the protection of the health system ”, underlines the SAGE in its conclusions.
“Public health measures and social measures remain an essential component of the COVID-19 prevention strategy, in particular with regard to the Omicron variant”, repeat the specialists of the committee, as did during the press conference Maria Van Kerkhove, responsible for pandemic management at WHO.
She insisted on the need for everyone to take responsibility to prevent the virus from continuing to circulate, while acknowledging that it was difficult. “We asked people to be careful, we asked governments to be careful,” she said.
“I hope more people are seriously considering what to do in the context in which they live and making the right decisions for them,” she said, adding that she herself had changed his plans for the Holidays.
Maria Van Kerkhove also recalled that we did not yet have enough data to conclude that the Omicron variant actually causes less serious forms of COVID-19, as some studies seem to show. “We don’t have the full picture, and it’s too early to conclude that Omicron is more benign than Delta or more severe than Delta,” she said.