Sharjah24 – Reuters: The World Health Organization (WHO) called on Thursday (October 21) on the world's 20 richest nations, holding a summit next week, to step up donations of COVID-19 doses to the global south where vaccinations lag.

"The G20 countries must fulfil their dose-sharing commitments immediately," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing.

Gordon Brown, WHO ambassador for global health financing, said that if the world's richest countries cannot mobilise for a vaccine airlift to developing countries, an epidemiological and economic "dereliction of duty will shame us all".

There is still a shortfall of 500 million vaccines to reach WHO's 40% vaccination target in all countries in mid-2022, while 240 million doses are lying unused in the West, Brown said.

WHO's emergency director Mike Ryan also said that more social mixing indoors after the lifting of restrictions just as winter sets in is driving a rise in COVID-19 infections in many countries across Europe.

"Most of those restrictions are now not in place anymore in many countries. And we're seeing that coincide with the winter period in which people are moving inside as the cold snaps appear," Ryan told a news briefing. "The question remains as to whether or not we will have the same experience as last year with health systems coming once again under pressure."

Russia has recorded its highest daily hospital death toll from the disease in a very long time, while the week-on-week rise in COVID-19 cases in Britain was less than in parts of eastern Europe, he said.

WHO's assistant director-general Mariangela Simao said an advisory group is studying decisions in Sweden and Denmark to halt vaccinating young people with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine after 'very rare' myocarditis in some.