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22 Dec 2021

Richer countries ‘need to do more’ to roll out vaccines to rest of world, WHO senior emergency officer says

Special Correspondent and Presenter

In response to the latest wave of the Omicron variant cases around the world and the need for vaccinations, the World Health Organization has dramatically called for a moratorium for rich countries with expansive booster jab campaigns to instead provide vaccines to the rest of the world.

We spoke to Dr Catherine Smallwood, who is the senior emergency officer at the World Health Organization’s regional office for Europe.

We began by asking her what we should make of initial reports from South Africa that Omicron has not caused as many hospitalisations and deaths.