[국제]WHO “Corona 19 collective immunity will not form this year”

[앵커]

As the spread of Corona 19 intensifies in the new year, the United States and Europe are doing their best to speed up vaccination.

Pfizer has also decided to increase the production of the COVID-19 vaccine to 2 billion doses.

However, despite these efforts, the WHO said it would be difficult to form a COVID-19 collective immunity within this year.

Reporter Kim Hyung-geun on the report.

[기자]

US President-elect Biden was vaccinated against Corona 19 at a hospital in Delaware.

This is the second vaccination following the 21st of last month.

Biden-elect announced at this meeting that he would make vaccination a top priority in the future.

[조 바이든 / 미국 대통령 당선인 : 제가 가장 우선적으로 해야 할 일은 바로 가능한 한 빨리 사람들의 팔에 백신을 접종하는 것입니다.]

Currently, the rate of vaccination in the United States is not keeping pace with the spread of Corona 19.

European countries are also working hard to secure additional vaccines and speed up vaccination.

Pfizer and Bioentech decided to increase vaccine production to 2 billion doses this year as the war to secure vaccines intensified around the world.

This is more than 50% higher than the previous target.

However, the World Health Organization’s WHO predicted, “Even with such efforts, the formation of COVID-19 collective immunity will not occur within this year.”

Currently, vaccination has begun in over 40 countries, mainly in high-income countries.

The rest of the countries have not yet received the vaccine.

The vaccines that the WHO has secured through the COVAX program have reached 2 billion doses, many of which are vaccines that have not yet been urgently approved, such as NovaVax, Sanofi and Janssen.

WHO judges that it is virtually impossible to form collective immunity for the rest of the world within this year with this quantity.

[숨야 스와미나탄 / WHO 최고 과학자 : 백신이 가장 취약한 사람들을 보호하기 시작하더라도, 2021년에 집단면역에 도달하지는 못할 겁니다. 비록 몇몇 국가에서 달성하더라도 전 세계 사람들을 보호하지는 못할 겁니다.]

WHO appealed to vaccine pharmaceutical companies to join Kovax under the plan to double the amount of Kovax secured.

This is YTN Kim Hyung-geun.

[저작권자(c) YTN & YTN plus 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]