A global scheme designed to ensure fair access to COVID-19 vaccines will this month for the first time distribute shots only to countries with the lowest levels of coverage, the World Health Organization said, Trend reports citing Al Arabiya.
Co-led by the WHO, COVAX has since January largely allocated doses proportionally among its 140-plus beneficiary states according to population size.
This made some richer nations that had already secured vaccines through separate deals with pharmaceutical firms eligible for COVAX doses alongside countries with no supplies at all.
With some nations administering booster shots while others are still giving first jabs to the most vulnerable, the WHO has now tweaked the rules.
“For the October supply we designed a different methodology, only covering participants with low sources of supply,” Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant Director General for Access to Vaccines, said in a recording of a conference presentation last week posted on the WHO’s website.
The change comes 15 months after the launch of the COVAX program and as WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus seeks renomination.