WHO: wealthy countries may hoard COVID-19 shots again to fight new variant

Wealthy countries may start to hoard COVID-19 vaccines again, threatening global supplies as they seek to shore up stocks to fight the new Omicron variant of the virus, a senior World Health Organization official said on Thursday. The warning by the WHO's vaccine director, Kate O'Brien, comes as supplies to the COVAX dose-sharing programme run by the WHO and vaccine charity GAVI have increased in the past few months due to donations from wealthy countries and after India eased limits on exports of vaccines.