GENEVA, Switzerland – More than half the world remains fully unvaccinated as the pace of growth of Covid-19 has surged to its highest level ever.

While many countries are boasting that more than 90 percent of their adult populations are fully vaccinated, more than half of the countries in the world, 109 out of 195, will unlikely even reach seventy percent full vaccination until July this year.

“To end the acute stage of the pandemic, the highly effective tools science has given us need to be shared fairly and quickly with all countries of the world,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday

“Vaccine inequity and health inequity overall were the biggest failures of last year.”

“Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, and Omicron reflect that in part because of low vaccination rates, we’ve created the perfect conditions for the emergence of virus variants,” Dr. Tedros said.

“Last week, the highest number of COVID-19 cases were reported so far in the pandemic.”

“And we know, for certain, that this is an underestimate of cases because reported numbers do not reflect the backlog of testing around the holidays, the number of positive self-tests not registered, and burdened surveillance systems that miss cases around the world.”

The number of Covid-19 cases has now exceeded 300 million with the total on Friday hitting 300,811,450. More than 10 percent of cases, 31.72 million, have been recorded in the past four weeks.

A total of 5.47 million have died, of which 182,701 have passed in the past 28 days. Twenty percent of these (37,601) have died in the United States. Omicron, the most contagious of the variants of the virus is the main strain currently creating havoc. Whilst less likely to kill, or cause serious illness, the variant, according to WHO, should not be underestimated.

“While Omicron does appear to be less severe compared to Delta, especially in those vaccinated, it does not mean it should be categorized as ‘mild,'” the WHO director-general said Thursday.

“Just like previous variants; Omicron is hospitalizing people and it is killing people.”

“In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick, that it is overwhelming health systems around the world,” Tedros said.

“Hospitals are becoming overcrowded and understaffed, which further results in preventable deaths from not only COVID-19 but other diseases and injuries where patients cannot receive timely care. “

“At the current pace of vaccine rollout, 109 countries would miss out on fully vaccinating 70% of their populations by the start of July 2022,” the director-general said.

“Booster after booster in a small number of countries will not end a pandemic while billions remain completely unprotected.”

The WHO chief called for the world to take a ‘never again’ approach to pandemic preparedness and vaccine manufacturing so that as soon as the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines become available, they are produced equitably and countries don’t have to beg for scarce resources.

While some of the vaccine makers and distributors are raking in billions (not Astra Zeneca which is producing its vaccine at no profit), Tedros said he was reminded that Jonas Salk did not patent his polio vaccine, which resulted in the saving of lives of millions of children.

“I call on citizens of the world, including civil society, scientists, business leaders, economists, and teachers to demand that governments and pharmaceutical companies share health tools globally and bring an end to the death and destruction of this pandemic,” Dr Tedros said.

(File photo).