Poorer nations have administered just 0.3% of coronavirus jabs, says WHO chief
| Updated: 10 Feb 2026
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said access to vaccines ‘is one of the defining challenges of the pandemic’.
More than one billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered globally but 82% of them were given in high and upper-middle income countries, according to the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said just 0.3% of all vaccines administered so far were given to people in low-income countries.
“That’s the reality,” Dr Tedros told an online health conference hosted by Portugal.
He said access to vaccines “is one of the defining challenges of the pandemic” and that public health is “the foundation of social, economic and political stability”.