The worst of the coronavirus pandemic — deaths, hospitalisations, lockdowns — could be over this year if huge inequities in vaccinations and medicines are addressed quickly, head of emergencies at the World Health Organisation said Tuesday. Dr. Michael Ryan, in a discussion on vaccine inequity hosted by the World Economic Forum, said “we may never end the virus” because such pandemic viruses “end up becoming part of the ecosystem.” 

But “we have a chance to end the public health emergency this year if we do the things that we’ve been talking about,” he said. WHO has slammed imbalance in COVID-19 vaccinations between rich and poor countries as a catastrophic moral failure. Less than 10% of people in lower-income countries have got even one dose of vaccine.