Co-led by the WHO, COVAX has since January largely allocated doses proportionally among its 140-plus beneficiary states according to population size.
This made some richer nations that had already secured vaccines through separate deals with pharmaceutical firms eligible for COVAX doses alongside countries with no supplies at all.
With some nations administering booster shots while others are still giving first jabs to the most vulnerable, the WHO has now tweaked the rules. "For the October supply we designed a different methodology, only covering participants with low sources of supply," Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant Director General for Access to Vaccines, said in a recording of a conference presentation last week posted on the WHO's