The World Health Organization (WHO) in a statement said that the Coronavirus pandemic has killed an estimated 80,000 to 180,000 healthcare workers from January 2020 till May this year. The estimates are derived from a new WHO working paper based on the 3.45 million Covid-19 related deaths reported to WHO as of May 2021.

The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO weekly Covid-19 briefing on Thursday said: "The backbone of every health system is its workforce. Covid-19 is a powerful demonstration of just how much we rely on these men and women, and how vulnerable we all are when the people who protect our health are themselves unprotected." Available data from 119 countries, in the working paper, suggest that by September 2021, two in five healthcare workers were fully vaccinated on average, with considerable difference across regions and economic groupings. Less than one in 10 have been fully vaccinated in the African and Western Pacific regions while 22 mostly high-income countries reported that above 80 per cent of their healthcare workers are fully vaccinated. A few large high-income countries have not yet reported data to WHO.

The WHO Chief noted that over 10 months since the first vaccines were approved, "the fact that millions of health workers still haven't been vaccinated is an indictment on the countries and companies that control the global supply of vaccines". Further, Tedros stated that the Covid-19 pandemic will drag on until 2022, much longer than it needs to, because several poor countries have not received vaccines against the deadly infectious disease.

WHO Regional Director hails India for administering over 1 billion COVID vaccine shots

Health Minister Mandaviya Discusses Covaxin's Emergency Use with WHO

WHO panel recommends COVID vaccine booster shot for people with weak immunity