Geneva: There is no need to prioritise the vaccination of the athletes participating in the Olympic Games in Tokyo planned for July since there are not enough doses to vaccinate even the most vulnerable groups, the Executive Director of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme, Mike Ryan has said.
The International Olympic Committee is working with the WHO to ensure that all the athletes received vaccines for the Olympics. “We have to face the realities of what we face now. There’s not enough vaccine to even serve those who are most at risk,” The New Indian Express (TNIE) quoted Ryan as saying.
The WHO expert stressed that frontline health care workers and the elderly should be the first to get vaccines, adding that this did not in any way diminish the importance of the Olympic Games.
“We face a crisis now on a global scale that requires frontline health workers, those older people and those most vulnerable to access vaccine first. That doesn’t in any way negate the desire or the will to have the Olympics,” Ryan waa quoted as saying.
The Summer Olympic Games in Japan are being held in July 2021.
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