'Global cooperation only choice to end pandemic'

GENEVA: Global cooperation, instead of competition and confrontation, is the only choice to end the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said while addressing the disparity in access to vaccines worldwide.

"The shocking global disparity in access to vaccines remains one of the biggest risks to ending the pandemic," Tedros said at a press briefing here on Monday.

According to the WHO's data, high- and upper-middle income countries, with 53 percent of the world's population, have received 83 per cent of the world's vaccines, while low- and lower-middle income countries, with 47 per cent of the world's population, have received just 17 per cent of the jabs, Xinhua news agency reported. Tedros expressed his belief that cooperation is the "only choice" to end this pandemic.

"We cannot defeat this pandemic through competition, we can't. If you compete for resources, or if you compete for geopolitical advantages, then the virus gets advantage," the Director-General said, stressing a "very basic principle of identifying the virus as a common enemy".

Despite declines in numbers of new COVID-19 cases in most regions including the Americas and Europe, the two worst-affected regions, the world has been witnessing an "unacceptably high plateau", with more than 5.4 million cases and almost 90,000 deaths reported last week, Tedros said. (IANS)

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