Are rich nations hogging coronavirus vaccines

The UN health agency chief said money was available to procure doses for some of the poorest countries, following fresh contributions from the United States, the European Union and Germany - but it was worthless if there was nothing to buy. Tedros urged wealthy nations to check whether their own deals with pharmaceutical companies were undermining Covax, which poorer countries are relying on as they await their first doses.

Group of Seven top industrialised nations along with the rest of the EU plus Australia had allegedly bought nearly 1.25 billion more doses than they needed to inoculate every member of their populations against Covid-19.

According to the WHO chief, this is affecting the deals with Covax - resulting in reduced allocation for the alliance. Tedros said: "We can only have vaccines delivered to the countries who are members of Covax if the high-income countries cooperate in respecting the deals that Covax did."

The world's biggest vaccine maker, India's Serum Institute, on Monday urged other countries to be "patient" about it supplying anti-coronavirus shots, saying it has been instructed to prioritise its home market. The European Commission said it is working with pharmaceutical giants to ramp up production of vaccines to between two and three billion doses per year, more than enough for the EU population of 450 million.

Visiting the Pfizer-BioNTech plant in Puurs, Belgium, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton said the goal was for Europe to become the number one vaccine producing continent, but that its neighbours would not be forgotten.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for intellectual property rights on Covid-19 medical goods to be waived - a move which could facilitate greater knowledge-sharing and the rapid scale-up of production sites. The idea, currently before the World Trade Organization, is staunchly opposed by pharmaceutical giants.

Tedros also urged pharmaceutical companies that were not making their own Covid-19 vaccines to turn over their facilities to produce other companies' doses, as Sanofi has done for the Pfizer-BioNTech jab. "If we increase the pie, then better opportunities to share it equitably too."