The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that the most vulnerable to COVID-19, especially the elderly, will have to receive a vaccine annually to be protected against options, according to an internal document seen by Reuters.
The assessment is included in a report to be discussed Thursday at a meeting of the board of GAVI, the vaccine alliance that is working with the WHO on the distribution of vaccines to developing countries.
Vaccine manufacturers Modern and Pfizer and Biontech are adamant that booster doses will be needed to boost immunity, which declines over time.
The document shows that the WHO considers annual boosters of high-risk individuals and immunization every two years for the rest of the population as its “indicative” scenario. In it, the organization believes that options will continue to appear and vaccines will be regularly updated to respond to these threats.
The WHO estimates that 12 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be produced worldwide in 2022. This shows that the agency does not expect a significant increase in vaccine production compared to this year, when forecasts are for 11 billion doses.
The analysis says production difficulties, problems with vaccine approval, and a “transition from some technology platforms” can be expected, which could lead to delays in deliveries next year. He did not comment on which technologies could be dropped, but the EU, which has reserved the largest quantities, relied mainly on mRNA technology and refused additional purchases of Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson vector vaccines.
The report will be used to identify vaccination strategies in the coming years. About 2.5 billion vaccines have been given so far, but the distribution is uneven. While in the richest countries more than half of the population has already received at least one dose, in the poorest countries less than 1% have been vaccinated.
This gap could widen next year, according to the WHO’s most pessimistic forecast, as supplies of the poor will slow even further due to the need for booster doses.
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