Vax boosters in some nations will create dire situations: WHO

A health worker takes a swab sample at a drive-through COVID-19 testing station in Melbourne on Thursday. Pic/AFP

The chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO) is warning of "even more dire situations" worldwide in the Coronavirus pandemic if high-income countries start administering vaccine boosters ahead of poorer countries without vaccines.

With the US health officials recommending booster shots for all Americans who have already been vaccinated, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan expressed concern that leaving billions of people in the developing world unvaccinated could foster emergence of new variants, like the Delta variant, that is driving new cases in the United States and beyond.

"We believe clearly that the data does not indicate that boosters are needed," Swaminathan said at a news conference in Geneva. She expressed more understanding for a recent US decision to administer boosters to people with weaker immune systems.

WHO officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that variants will continue to crop up in areas where the virus goes unchecked and called for vaccine equity and "solidarity" among countries.

Dr. Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies chief, said, "If we think about this in terms of an analogy, we're planning to hand out extra life jackets to people who already have life jackets, while we're leaving other people to drown without a single life jacket."

Oz states struggle to contain Delta

Australia's two most populous states are desperately struggling in their uphill battle against the Delta variant of COVID-19 with both New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria facing increasing rises in cases. New South Wales, where the outbreak began with a single case in its capital city of Sydney in mid-June, remains the epicentre of the rapidly escalating national crisis.

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