BRUSSELS – The head of the World Trade Organization said Thursday it is of paramount importance to diversify vaccine manufacturing and to have more production taking place in Africa and Latin America to contain the pandemic.
On the eve of a global health summit in Rome, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told European Union legislators that normal market forces for exports and imports couldn't apply when it comes to the life-or-death issue of COVID-19 vaccines, as many of the world’s wealthiest nations were hoarding the shots for their own population when the crisis hit their home turf.
She said the world has the capacity to manufacture some 5 billion vaccine doses overall but that as the virus has spread “we require twice and three