The donation of Covid-19 vaccines to developing countries must be better organized, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Donations should come less on a whim and instead be more predictable and in larger quantities, the WHO urged, in a joint statement together with the global COVAX initiative and the African Union's African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT).
So far, more than 90 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been donated worldwide with the help of those two distribution initiatives, the WHO said.
Most of the donations have been relatively ad hoc, it added. Many doses have also arrived with only a short shelf life, making it difficult for the receiving countries to plan vaccination campaigns.
The UN agency called for all donated vaccines to have a shelf life of at least 10 weeks. Necessary materials - such as syringes, diluents and freight costs - should be included.
In Africa, 6.6 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the African Centre for Infectious Diseases (Africa CDC).
Last week, the Omicron strain of the virus was detected in southern Africa and has since been classified as a variant of concern by the WHO.
