World

Vaccination rate of 70% needed to end pandemic – WHO chief

(FILES) In this file photo taken on March 11, 2020 World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO heardquaters in Geneva. - Congressional Republicans on April 16, 2020 urged President Donald Trump to condition US funding for the World Health Organization on the resignation of its chief over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Seventeen Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said they had "lost faith" in Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus's WHO leadership, even as they stressed the organization is vital to tackling the world's health problems. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

In order for the international community to beat the COVID-19 pandemic all countries across the globe will have to achieve a vaccination rate of 70%, World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote for Izvestia Russian newspaper, expressing his hopes that this goal will be achieved by mid-2022.

“It is important that governments continue to implement targeted health and social welfare measures that include testing, sequencing and reporting variants of the virus without fear of any censure, ” Ghebreyesus said.

The WHO head also underscored the need for all countries to have equal access to vaccines. He stated that it is his opinion that the lack of access to jabs in some regions was what lead to the emergence of the new Omicron variant.