The World Health Organization advised the governments of countries not to demand evidence of vaccination against the Coronavirus as a condition for allowing international travel, amid mounting controversy over this issue in the circumstances of the pandemic continuing.
The Organization’s Emergency Committee said, in a statement, that the governments of countries should not demand evidence of vaccination as a condition to allow international travel, given the increasingly limited indicators about the effectiveness of vaccines in reducing virus transmission and the continuing inequality in the level of vaccine distribution in the world.
The independent experts of the organization, who issued their statement following a meeting held last Thursday, considered that the governments of the countries of the world must recognize that demanding proof of vaccination against the Coronavirus deepens inequality and leads to increased inequality in the field of freedom of travel.
WHO had previously leveled sharp criticism of the policies for distributing vaccines against the Coronavirus in the world, noting that 76% of them were stored in 10 rich countries.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that vaccine nationalism could cost the global economy up to $9.2 trillion.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, also warned that the continuation of the “dangerous trend of vaccine nationalism” against the Coronavirus by rich countries would delay the recovery of the global economy.
