Even as Covid drug makers are posting record profits, thelifesaving treatments often remain out of reach for the poor, the World HealthOrganisation said.
According to the WHO, reported cases and deaths from Covid-19are continuing to decline globally, with reported weekly deaths at their lowestsince March 2020.
"But these trends... don't tell the full story,"WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.
"It's too soon to know whether these new sub-variantscan cause more severe disease than other Omicron sub-variants, but early datasuggest vaccination remains protective against severe disease and death,"Ghebreyesus said.
As in the beginning of the pandemic, the high prices of thevaccines keep the poor out of reach of the essential jabs, he said.
While, "manufacturers are posting record profits"the WHO chief lamented that ..."low availability and high prices have ledsome countries to rule out buying these life-saving treatments".
Calling it a "moral failing" Ghebreyesus said that"we cannot accept prices that make life-saving treatments available to therich and out of reach for the poor".
US drug maker Pfizer, this week, posted a revenue of $25.7billion for the first quarter, up 77 per cent from the year-ago period. WhileCovid vaccine took $13.2 billion, a further $1.5bn came from Paxlovid, a Covidpill for people who are at high risk of severe disease.
Similarly, rival Moderna's first-quarter vaccine sales morethan tripled at $6 billion over the same period last year, when it reported$1.7 billion in sales. The US biotech company has reported $3.66 billion in netincome for the quarter, a threefold increase over the $1.2 billion it reporteda year earlier. Both drugakers have also maintained their full-year salesforecast for the Covid vaccine at $21 billion.
Ghebreyesus added that the highly effective antivirals suchas Pfizer's Paxlovid "are still not accessible to people in low- andmiddle-income countries," even as reports claim that nearly 600,000courses of the highly effective Covid pill are piled up unused in the US.
"Coupled with low investment in early diagnosis, it issimply not acceptable that in the worst pandemic in a century, innovativetreatments that can save lives are not reaching those that need them.
"We're playing with a fire that continues to burnus," he warned.
The global health body chief blamed "a combination oflack of political commitment, operational capacity problems, financialconstraints and hesitancy due to misinformation and disinformation," thatis limiting demand for vaccines.
Besides vaccinating at least 70 per cent of the population ofevery country -- including 100 per cent of the most at-risk groups, Ghebreyesusalso called for boosting "testing and sequencing". He said it remainscrucial to understand "how the virus is mutating" to "knowwhat's coming next".