Urgent steps needed on how to use jabs that exist today: WHO

The World Health Organization WHO said that only 1 per cent of the 100 million doses of the COVID19 vaccine administered last week went in the lowestincome countriesClose to ldquo99 million doses of vaccines last week went into high and uppermiddleincome and some low and middleincome countries but only one per cent of that went to the lowestincome countriesrdquo Bruce Aylward Senior Advisor to the WHO DirectorGeneral on Organizational Change said at a press conference on MondayAsked whether more vaccines should be produced Aylward said that ldquowe need to be careful thinking that we can simply build additional capacityrdquo because ldquothat capacity is still going to the wrong placesrdquo reports Xinhua news agencyThe world body said that it is working with manufacturers to help increase vaccine capacity for the COVAX Facility a WHOled initiative to distribute vaccines for low and middleincome countriesAylward said it will ldquotake weeks and monthsrdquo to increase vaccine supplies and ldquoin the meantime wersquove got to take some urgent and important decisions about how we are going to use the vaccines that exist todayrdquoSoumya Swaminathan Chief Scientist of the WHO explained at the same press conference that the ldquoimmediate needrdquo of COVAX is to increase vaccine supplies by working with manufacturers and suppliers on suppressing ldquoroadblocks and obstaclesrdquo as well as ensuring that export bans ldquodonrsquot interfere with the process of vaccine manufacturingrdquoBack from Kumbh former Nepal king tests positiveNepalrsquos former king Gyanendra Shah who returned from India after participating in the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar has tested positive for COVID19 sources in the Health Ministry said Accompanied by his wife Komal Shah the former king returned to Nepal on Sunday after which they underwent a mandatory testing for COVID19Greece lifts quarantine for EU travellersGreece has lifted the selfquarantine requirement for travellers arriving in the country from the European Union EU the UK the US the United Arab Emirates Serbia and Israel Greecersquos Civil Aviation Authority CAA said on Monday The exemption also applies to travellers from four nonEU member states in the socalled Schengen zone Iceland Norway Switzerland and Liechtenstein Xinhua news agency reportedNo clarity on lifting raw materials banUnited States President Joe Bidenrsquos spokesperson Jen Psaki has refused to say if the US will allow the export of COVID19 vaccine raw materials to India a shortage that could impact global supply or set a timeline for dealing with the requests for relaxing the vaccine patent rights At her briefing in Washington on Monday she sidestepped a question about reports that at a virtual meeting Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar the US had indicated that it was considering the request for lifting the raw materials ban490593No of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours142425353Total no of cases worldwide3033145Total no of deaths worldwideSource WHOJohns HopkinsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever