WHO wants Covid-19 jabs in all countries within 100 days

The World Health Organization's (WHO) director-general said on Friday he wanted Covid-19 vaccination campaigns taking place in every nation across the globe within the next 100 days.

"I want to see vaccination under way in every country in the next 100 days so that health workers and those at high risk are protected first," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Geneva.

On Friday, the WHO emergency committee called for globally-ramped up coronavirus sequencing studies in order to combat troubling new variants stalking the globe.

The meeting was dragged forward by two weeks for urgent talks on the emerging, seemingly more contagious variants of the virus, as the death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic topped two million.

The emergency committee came out against countries requiring proof of vaccination from incoming international travellers.

However, it said it was time to overhaul recommendations on travel guidance given what was now known about the virus.

And while it sounded the alarm on a new virus variant circulating in Brazil, the WHO warned that the current infection spikes in some countries could be blamed on lapses in behaviour rather than simply the new mutations.

According to an AFP tally on Friday, at least 35.61 million doses of anti Covid-19 vaccines have been injected in some 58 countries and territories around the world.