WHO set to vaccinate 40% every country by end 2021

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Thursday an initiative to vaccinate 40 percent of the population of every country against COVID-19 by the end of 2021 and 70 percent by mid-2022, by prioritizing vaccine delivery to low-income countries, particularly those in Africa, reported Xinhua.

"Today, WHO is launching the Strategy to Achieve Global COVID-19 Vaccination by mid-2022," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing. "The strategy outlines the road we must all take together to achieve our targets of vaccinating 40 percent of the population of every country by the end of this year, and 70 percent by the middle of next year."

According to Tedros, achieving these targets will require at least 11 billion vaccine doses, which is an allocation problem instead of a supply problem.

"With global vaccine production now at nearly 1.5 billion doses per month, there is enough supply to achieve our targets, provided they are distributed equitably," he said.