Geneva: Global cooperation, instead of competition and confrontation, is the only option to end the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom  said.

Ghebreyesus, while addressing the disparity in access to vaccines worldwide,  went on saying - "The shocking global disparity in access to vaccines remains one of the biggest risks to ending the pandemic," Tedros expressed his belief that cooperation is the "only choice" to end this pandemic.

"We cannot defeat this pandemic through competition, we can't. If you compete for resources, or if you compete for geopolitical advantages, then the virus gets advantage," the Director-General said, stressing a "very basic principle of identifying the virus as a common enemy".

Despite declines in numbers of new Covid-19 cases in most regions including the Americas and Europe, the two worst-affected regions, the world has been witnessing an "unacceptably high plateau", with more than 5.4 million cases and almost 90,000 deaths reported last week, Tedros said.

According to the WHO's data, high- and upper-middle-income countries, with 53 percent of the world's population, have received 83 percent of the world's vaccines, while low- and lower-middle-income countries, with 47 percent of the world's population, have received just 17 percent of the jabs.

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