Boost for vaccine doses planned for poor as virus rages on

GENEVA: Up to 100 million additional doses of any eventual Covid-19 vaccines will be secured for delivery to poorer countries in 2021, health groups announced Tuesday, as the virus showed no sign of receding after claiming more than one million lives around the world.

The announcement doubles the number of doses already secured from the Serum Institute of India by the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, following an initial agreement last month.

The public-private health partnership stressed that the eventual total is "potentially several times" greater, and said the price would be capped at $3 per dose.

"No country, rich or poor, should be left at the back of the queue when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines; this collaboration brings us another step closer to achieving this goal," Gavi chief Seth Berkley said in a statement.

As nine vaccine candidates are in last-stage trials, the World Health Organization is stepping up efforts to provide faster and cheaper testing to poorer countries.

The WHO said Monday that some 120 million rapid tests for Covid-19 will be made available to low- and middle-income countries at $5 each under a $600-million scheme -- as long as funding can be secured.

The kits -- faster, cheaper and easier to administer than regular standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab tests, but also less reliable -- will be rolled out across 133 countries in the next six months.

"This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have lab facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out PCR tests," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.

Experts have for months been calling for widespread adoption of this low-cost technology so that people can test themselves several times a week.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that "responsible leadership matters" in steering the world through the pandemic.

"Science matters. Cooperation matters -- and misinformation kills," he warned, urging people to respect familiar infection control measures like hand-washing, distancing and mask-wearing.

Meanwhile, case numbers are climbing rapidly in Europe, whose governments are clamping down on movement in an attempt to curb the surge.

Germany introduced new limits on the number of people who can attend private events, after Spain, France, Britain and Northern Ireland all imposed fresh restrictions in recent days.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said "a reaction is necessary" after recent outbreaks were frequently traced to weddings and other gatherings.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared to share general confusion about his government's measures, apologising via Twitter after wrongly saying that rules limiting gatherings in northeast England to no more than six people did not apply outdoors.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia said they were preparing to declare a state of emergency.

In Greece, the first cruise ship to sail to the country since its lockdown was given the virus all-clear after a "false alarm" among crew members forced it to dock.

In Israel, which has the world's highest infection rate per capita, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Tuesday that there was "no way" the country's second nationwide coronavirus lockdown would be lifted after three weeks as originally planned.