WHO connects nations, partners and people to promote health
NEW-DELHI: The World Health Organization on Tuesday changed its recommendations for the Covid-19 vaccination, suggesting that high-risk populations should receive an additional dose 12 months after their last booster.
The World Health Agency defines high-risk populations as older adults as well as younger people with other significant risk factors. For this group, the agency recommends an additional shot of the vaccine 6 or 12 months after the latest dose, depending on factors such as age and immunocompromising conditions.
The WHO defined the group as low priority, including healthy children and youth, and urged countries to consider factors such as disease outcomes before recommending vaccination of this group.
The recommendations comes as countries take different approaches to their populations. Some high-income countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada are already offering Covid-19 boosters to high-risk people six months after their last dose.
The WHO said it was an option for a subset of people who were particularly at risk, but its recommendations were meant as a best practice global guide. The expert committee also said that an additional booster vaccine for Covid beyond the initial series — two shots and a booster — is no longer routinely recommended for people at "moderate risk", stated agency.
About WHO....
The World Health Organization was founded in 1948. It is the United Nations agency that connects nations, partners and people to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. The motive of the organisation is that everybody can attain the highest level of health.
The WHO has played a vital role in many of the public health successes of the last few decades. It was instrumental in the global eradication of smallpox. It has also run a campaign that has achieved the near-eradication of polio, and has worked for decades to reduce the threat from malaria. The WHO in 2020 it declared the outbreak of the covid-19 coronavirus a pandemic and urged governments to take strong measures to control the spread of the disease.
Significantly, the World Health Organization also sets international standards for diagnosing diseases and disorders. It maintains a catalogue called the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which lists all the known conditions and the symptoms by which they should be diagnosed.
The organisation encourages the strengthening of the public health administrations of member nations, provides technical advice to governments in the preparation of long-term health plans, sends out international teams of experts to conduct field surveys and demonstration projects, helps set up local health centres, and offers assistance in the development of national training institutions for medical and nursing personnel.
