BERLIN: The World Health Organisation recommends against using spare doses of COVID-19 vaccine to give booster shots to countries' fully-vaccinated populations, since the priority is to ensure the global population is vaccinated, the agency's head said.

Speaking in Berlin at the opening of a new epidemic intelligence hub, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries with spare vaccines available to donate any deliveries they received in the near term to COVAX or other initiatives aimed at sharing doses with poorer countries.

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"For now, we do not want to see widespread use of boosters for healthy people who are fully vaccinated," he said. "We call on countries that have contracted high volumes of vaccines to swap near-term delivery schedules with COVAX and the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust, or AVAT."