WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus evaluated the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 outbreak at the press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva.
Tedros stated that since the end of 2019 6.45 million deaths have been seen in the world due to coronavirus.
“This week we passed a sad turning point with 1 million deaths since the beginning of the year,” he said.
Emphasizing that such deaths are unacceptable despite the availability of tools to prevent loss of life, Tedros said, “We call on all governments to vaccinate healthcare workers, the elderly, and people at high risk on the path to the goal of vaccinating 70% of their population.”
Tedros noted that 136 countries could not meet the target of vaccinating 70% of their population until the end of June, and underlined that 66 of these countries could not vaccinate even 40% of their population yet.
Tedros noted that the vaccination capacity is gradually increasing in countries with low vaccination rates.
“More should be done. One third of the world’s population, two-thirds of health workers, and three-quarters of the elderly are still unvaccinated,” he said.
Tedros reiterated his call for WHO member states not to reduce their capacity for testing, genome sequencing, and vaccination.
