High demand for a safe and effective vaccine against the coronavirus is already causing competition between countries and could drive prices higher, the World Health Organization’s top official warned Thursday.
“When a successful new vaccine is found, there will be greater demand than there is supply. Excess demand and competition for supply is already creating vaccine nationalism and risk of price gouging,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “This is the kind of market failure that only global solidarity, public sector investment and engagement can solve.”
